Ultrasound phase rotation beamforming on multi-core DSP

Phase rotation beamforming (PRBF) is a commonly-used digital receive beamforming technique. However, due to its high computational requirement, it has traditionally been supported by hardwired architectures, e.g., application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or more recently field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). In this study, we investigated the feasibility of supporting software-based PRBF on a multi-core DSP. To alleviate the high computing requirement, the analog front-end (AFE) chips integrating quadrature demodulation in addition to analog-to-digital conversion were defined and used. With these new AFE chips, only delay alignment and phase rotation need to be performed by DSP, substantially reducing the computational load. We implemented the delay alignment and phase rotation modules on a Texas Instruments C6678 DSP with 8 cores. We found it takes 200 μs to beamform 2048 samples from 64 channels using 2 cores. With 4 cores, 20 million samples can be beamformed in one second. Therefore, ADC frequencies up to 40 MHz with 2:1 decimation in AFE chips or up to 20 MHz with no decimation can be supported as long as the ADC-to-DSP I/O requirement can be met. The remaining 4 cores can work on back-end processing tasks and applications, e.g., color Doppler or ultrasound elastography. One DSP being able to handle both beamforming and back-end processing could lead to low-power and low-cost ultrasound machines, benefiting ultrasound imaging in general, particularly portable ultrasound machines.     

Quadratic optimization problems in robust beamforming

This paper presents a class of constrained optimization problems whereby a quadratic cost function is to be minimized with respect to a weight vector subject to an inequality quadratic constraint on the weight vector. This class of constrained optimization problems arises as a result of a motivation for designing robust antenna array processors in the field of adaptive array processing. The constrained optimization problem is first solved by using the primal-dual method. Numerical techniques are presented to reduce the computational complexity of determining the optimal Lagrange multiplier and hence the optimal weight vector. Subsequently, a set of linear constraints or at most linear plus norm constraints are developed for approximating the performance achievable with the quadratic constraint. The use of linear constraints is very attractive, since they reduce the computational burden required to determine the optimal weight vector.     

光纤延迟线噪音对相控阵波束指向的影响

基于相位噪音和相控阵理论,运用线阵天线原始方向图函数和光纤链路噪音系数公式,根据天线波束指向实际误差进行合理近似,推导了光延迟线链路噪音系数、天线阵元数与波束指向误差的理论公式.采用常规光纤链路参量进行了仿真研究,结果表明:相控阵天线波束指向误差均方差随光纤链路噪音系数增大而增加,随天线阵元数增加而减小,指向误差与光纤延迟线链路噪音系数的1/2次方成正比,与阵元数的3/2次方成反比.在相控阵天线工作频段内,低频波段受噪音系数影响更加明显.     

基于自适应加权约束最小二乘法的麦克风阵列稳健频率不变波束形成算法

为了解决麦克风阵列通道失配时波束形成算法的稳健性问题, 提出一种基于自适应加权约束最小二乘法的麦克风阵列稳健频率不变波束形成算法. 该算法在分析无通道失配和通道失配时阵列模型特点基础上, 深入研究了通道失配时约束最小二乘频率不变波束形成算法存在的问题及其产生的原因; 将麦克风特性的概率密度函数作为稳健因子加入到约束最小二乘频率不变波束形成算法后, 其频率不变性的稳健性得到了一定的提高, 但稳健性仍较差. 为了进一步提高约束最小二乘法频率不变波束形成算法的稳键性, 通过定义代价函数中控制频率不变性的动态加权系数来调节旁瓣频谱能量, 大大提高了频率不变波束形成算法的稳键性, 将频率不变的频带范围内同一到达角度上不同频率所形成的阵列响应的最大值与最小值之比定义为波动误差, 并作为比较本文算法与约束最小二乘稳健波束形成算法和minmax稳健波束形成算法在通道失配时频率不变性稳键性的评价指标. 算法实例验证结果表明, 在麦克风阵列通道失配时, 本文算法的波动误差最小、频率不变波束形成稳健性最好, 而且适用于任意结构的阵列.     

扩展拖曳阵宽带频域逆波束形成技术研究

为了提高扩展拖曳阵在低信噪比下对目标的探测性能,本文将基于扩展拖曳阵方法的被动合成孔径技术与宽带频域逆波束形成技术进行了结合,形成了一种新的被动合成孔径测向技术,有效地提高了扩展拖曳阵技术的探测性能,改善了传统基于被动合成孔径测向技术在低信噪比下性能急剧下降的问题,在低信噪比下获得了更高的方位分辨率,同时对于多目标及弱目标检测能力也更为优异。计算机仿真和海试数据的处理都证明了这一算法的良好性能。     

水下线谱噪声源识别的波束域时频分析方法研究

从联合空时频三维信息从发, 提出了波束域时频分析识别水下运动航行器低频线谱噪声源位置的方法. 首先, 利用小孔径圆环阵的超指向性波束形成, 将各线谱噪声源匀速通过正横位置附近时产生的多普勒信号在时域上分离. 其次, 分别使用伪Wigner-Ville分布和调频小波变换两种时频分析方法对波束输出的信号进行处理, 得到各噪声源信号的时频图像. 最后, 转换时间坐标到空间并参考配置信标, 即可识别低频线谱噪声源在水下航行器上的位置. 该方法解决了阵列识别水下低频噪声源的孔径受限问题, 同时对处理同频相干噪声源也适用. 仿真试验结果表明: 两种波束域时频分析方法都能较精确地识别低频线谱噪声源的位置; 在测量系统信息的配合下, 波束域调频小波变换的识别效果更优.     

特定频率响应FIR滤波器的设计及其在水声中的应用

在水声信号处理中，有时普通滤波器不能够满足应用要求，需要利用具有任意的给定频率响应的滤波器，本文利用自适应方法设计具有给定频率响应的FIR滤波器，将将该方法设计的滤波器用于产生宽带信号的精确时延信号和进行时域宽带波速形成，使用效果较好。该类滤波器使用非常有效。而且计算量小，易于工程实现。     

基于啁啾光纤光栅时分延时的相控阵波束形成

利用脉冲调制雷达信号的间歇性工作特点,不同波长的激光与雷达信号进行时分调制。啁啾光纤光栅将已调制射频信号的一串光脉冲序列进行反射延时,不同波长的激光序列在不同位置反射后产生不同时延。对载波频率等于4GHz的脉冲雷达信号进行实验测量,结果表明4个阵元的延时值与波束指向的理论延迟值一致,满足系统设计要求。     

基于空时级联滤波的拖船自噪声抵消方法

拖船自噪声属于近场多途强干扰信号,具有显著角度扩展现象,是影响拖曳阵探测性能的重要因素之一。在逆波束形成自噪声抵消方法基础上,结合空域和时域滤波,提出了空时级联滤波的拖船自噪声抵消方法。首先,由方位估计器估计拖船自噪声方位,经过波束形成空域滤波估计得到自噪声信号;然后,利用自噪声空域滤波输出设计最优维纳滤波器,将自噪声抵消在阵元级。基于简正波声场模型的仿真和实际海试数据的处理表明,该方法能够有效抵消拖船自噪声,性能优于逆波束形成方法。     

A single hop architecture exploiting cooperative beamforming for wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we propose a single hop architecture for a cooperative wireless sensor network and analyze the attained distributed beamforming gain performance using the theory of random arrays. All nodes in the system transmit a single carrier such that the signals add up constructively towards the direction of the fusion center. The potential directive beamforming gains are investigated for different sensor network densities which are expressed as the number of nodes per carrier wavelength squared. The multiple access capability of the sensor network is achieved by employing an on-off keying orthogonal signaling technique, which is usually employed in atmospheric optical systems. Finally, we investigate the average loss in directivity gain when the received signal from each sensor node follows a Ricean distribution. The results show that high directive gains can be achieved in practical wireless sensor networks using simple sensor nodes.