Active control of passive acoustic fields: passive synthetic aperture/Doppler beamforming with data from an autonomous vehicle

The maneuverability of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) equipped with hull-mounted arrays provides the opportunity to actively modify received acoustic fields to optimize extraction of information. This paper uses ocean acoustic data collected by an AUV-mounted two-dimensional hydrophone array, with overall dimension one-tenth wavelength at 200-500 Hz, to demonstrate aspects of this control through vehicle motion. Source localization is performed using Doppler shifts measured at a set of receiver velocities by both single elements and a physical array. Results show that a source in the presence of a 10-dB higher-level interferer having exactly the same frequency content (as measured by a stationary receiver) is properly localized and that white-noise-constrained adaptive beamforming applied to the physical aperture data in combination with Doppler beamforming provides greater spatial resolution than physical-aperture-alone beamforming and significantly lower sidelobes than single element Doppler beamforming. A new broadband beamformer that adjusts for variations in vehicle velocity on a sample by sample basis is demonstrated with data collected during a high-acceleration maneuver. The importance of including the cost of energy expenditure in determining optimal vehicle motion is demonstrated through simulation, further illustrating how the vehicle characteristics are an integral part of the signal/array processing structure.     

Nearfield broadband array design using a radially invariant modal expansion

This paper introduces an efficient parameterization for the nearfield broadband beamforming problem with a single parameter to focus the beamformer to a desired operating radius and another set of parameters to control the actual broadband beampattern shape. The parameterization is based on an orthogonal basis set of elementary beampatterns by which an arbitrary beampattern can be constructed. A set of elementary beamformers are then designed for each elementary beampattern and the desired beamformer is constructed by summing the elementary beamformers with frequency and source-array distance dependent weights. An important consequence of our result is that the beamformer can be factored into three levels of filtering: (i) beampattern independent elementary beamformers; (ii) beampattern shape dependent filters; and (iii) radial focusing filters where a single parameter can be adjusted to focus the array to a desired radial distance from the array origin. As an illustration the method is applied to the problem of producing a practical array design that achieves a frequency invariant beampattern over the frequency range of 1:10 (which is suitable for speech acquisition using a microphone array), and with the array focused either to farfield or nearfield where at the lowest frequency the radial distance to the source is only three wavelengths.     

Frequency-invariant robust adaptive beamforming based on interference covariance matrix reconstruction

Consider the problems of frequency-invariant beampattern optimization and robustness in broadband beamforming.Firstly,a global optimization algorithm,which is based on phase compensation of the array manifolds,is used to construct the frequency-invariant beampattern.Compared with some methods presented recently,the proposed algorithm is not only available to get the global optimal solution,but also simple for physical realization.Meanwhile,a robust adaptive broadband beamforming algorithm is also derived by reconstructing the covariance matrix.The essence of the proposed algorithm is to estimate the space-frequency spectrum using Capon estimator firstly,then integrate over a region separated from the desired signal direction to reconstruct the interference-plus-noise covariance matrix,and finally caleulate the adaptive beamformer weights with the reconstructed matrix.The design of beamformer is formulated as a convex optimization problem to be solved.Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is almost always close to the optimal value across a wide range of signal to noise ratios.     

基于干扰协方差矩阵重构的恒定束宽鲁棒自适应波束形成

针对宽带波束形成中的恒定束宽波束响应优化设计问题与鲁棒性问题展开研究。首先,提出一种基于相位补偿的恒定束宽全局优化设计方法,通过对阵列流形向量进行相位补偿来设计恒定束宽波束,与现有的一些方法相比,该方法不仅能获得全局最优解,而且物理实现简单。同时,还提出一种基于协方差矩阵重构的鲁棒自适应宽带波束形成算法。该算法采用Capon估计器估计样本数据的空间一频率谱密度函数,然后对期望信号波达方向之外的角度区间进行积分来重构干扰加噪声协方差矩阵,最后利用重构的协方差矩阵设计自适应波束形成器权系数。该波束形成器设计问题被表述成凸优化问题求解。仿真结果表明,在整个输入信噪比范围内,该算法几乎都能获得接近理想值的输出信干噪比。      

Design of broadband beamformers based on an expected response interpolation technique

A method for designing broadband beamformers based on an expected response interpolation technique was proposed, with the aim of reducing the heavy optimization burden in the broadband beamformer design problem. In the method, some typical frequencies in the designing frequency band are selected and the optimal array weights are designed on these typical frequencies, based on which a broadband expected response function is constructed. Then, FIR filters are designed to realize the broadband beamforming over the whole designing frequency band, via the interpolation technique which is utilized to the expected responses of the FIR filters. Broadband beamforming can be fulfilled by applying these filters to each of the sensors in the array. By using the proposed method, designers need not to divide the whole designing frequency band into narrow subbands so as to make the narrow band assumption valid, which not only reduces the heavy designing burden, but also releases the requirement for measurements at fine frequency grids in the robust beamformer design. Results of both computer simulations and watertank experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

宽带恒定束宽波束形成器的设计与实现

本文提出了一种设计宽带恒定束宽波束形成器的方法,这对应用于海底探测和分类问题的声纳系统来说十分重要,对于给定频带宽度的信号,选择一定数量的频率点来表达其频率响应,对于一个给定的频点,可以通过现有方法导出满足恒定宽要求的加权矢量,例如对于一个线阵列,可用切比雪夫多项多得到其加权矢量,因此对于一个具有Ｎ个阵元的宽带阵,如果选择Ｍ个频率点,可以得到一个ＮＭ的加权矩阵,这个矩阵的每一行代表一个阵元的频率响     

Comparison of the measured and theoretical performance of a broadband circular microphone array

The design and construction of a circular microphone array (CMA) that has a wide frequency range suitable for human hearing is presented. The design of the CMA was achieved using a technique based on simulated directivity index (DI) curves. The simulated DI curves encapsulate the critical microphone array performance limitations: spatial aliasing, measurement noise, and microphone placement errors. This paper demonstrates how the non-regularized DI curves for a given beamforming order clearly define the bandwidth of operation, in other words, the frequency band for which the beamformer has relatively constant and maximum directivity. Detailed and comprehensive experimental data that characterizes the CMA beamformer are also presented.     

A numerical optimization approach to acoustic hull array design

A numerical optimization approach is presented to optimize passive broadband detection performance of hull arrays through the adjustment of array shading weights. The approach is developed for general hull arrays in low signal-to-noise ratio scenarios, and is shown to converge rapidly to optimal solutions that maximize the array's deflection coefficient. The beamformer is not redesigned in this approach; only the shading weights of the conventional beamformer are adjusted. This approach allows array designers to use the array to minimize the impact of known sources of noise on detection at the beamformer output while maintaining acoustic array gain against an unknown source. The technique is illustrated through numerical examples using hull-borne structural noise as the noise source; however, the design concept can be applied to other design parameters of the array such as element position, material selection, etc.     

Robust supergain beamforming for circular array via second-order cone programming

The phenomenon of supergain for a circular array and its robust beamforming are presented. The coplanar superdirective array gain of the circular array, although it is not so extreme as an endfire line array, outperforms a lot over that of a conventional delay-and-sum beamformer in isotropic noise fields when the inter-element spacings are much smaller than one-half wavelength. However, optimum beamforming algorithms can be extremely sensitive to slight errors in array characteristics. The performance are known to degrade significantly if some of underlying assumptions on the sensor array is violated. Therefore, white noise gain constraint is used to improve the robustness of the supergain beamformer against random errors. We show that the design of the weight vector of robust supergain beamformer can be reformulated as a form of second-order cone programming and resolved efficiently via the well-established interior point method. Results of computer simulation for a 24-element circular array confirm satisfactory performance of the approach proposed in this paper.     

有距离辨识度的传声器阵列波束优化算法研究*

小尺度线性传声器阵列在便携式通信设备中具有潜在应用前景,其波束优化算法大多关注于抑制来自与声源不同方向的噪声,而不能有效地抑制与声源同方向的噪声。本文通过对几种典型波束优化策略进行改进,增加线性约束条件,使得阵列兼具方向和距离辨识度。论文对比了几种优化方法的波束性能,同时讨论了约束条件对波束旁瓣的影响,并提出了鲁棒性的优化方案。仿真结果显示,合理的优化策略和线性约束条件可以使阵列波束获得很好的聚焦性能。     

Frequency Downconverting Fiber Grating-Based Beamformers for High-Capacity Phased Arrays

A technique is presented to remove the beat noise limitation in multibeam beam formers using a simple all-optical microwave frequency downconversion technique prior to performing the true-time delay equalization in the optical domain. The frequency conversion concept enables a significant increase in beam-number capac ity to be achieved due to the elimination of beat noise limits, and also effectively removes the power penalty due to chromatic dispersion limitations of the chirped grating units in the beamformer. The Bragg grating requirements for the frequency converting beamforming network are analyzed and show that tanh-profile apodized gratings can meet the isolation, reflectivity, and narrow bandwidth requirements. For an X-band phased array, more than a twofold increase in beam capacity is shown through the use of the frequency conversion technique with the grating-based beamformer, and the resulting beamformer has the minimum number of optical interconnects with true-time delay operation.     

Broadband optimal contrast resolution beamforming

This paper proposes a novel receive beamformer architecture for broadband imaging systems that uses unique finite impulse response (FIR) filters on each channel. The conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamformer applies receive apodization by weighting the signal on each receive channel prior to beam summation. Our proposed FIR beamformer passes the focused receive radio frequency (RF) signals through multi-tap FIR filters on each receive channel prior to summation. The receive FIR filters are constructed to maximize the contrast resolution of the system’s spatial response. The broadband FIR beamformer produces spatial point spread functions (PSFs) with narrower mainlobe widths and lower sidelobe levels than spatial PSFs produced by the conventional DAS beamformer.We present simulation results showing that FIR filters of modest tap lengths (3-7) can yield marked improvement in image contrast and point resolution. Specifically we show that 7-tap FIR filters can reduce sidelobe and grating lobe energy by 30 dB and improve contrast resolution by as much as 20 dB compared to conventional apodization profiles. This improvement in contrast resolution comes at the expense of a decrease in beamformer sensitivity. We investigate the effects of phase aberration and show in simulation results that the multi-tap FIR beamformer outperforms the unaberrated DAS beamformer by 8-12 dB even in the presence of moderate aberration characterized by a root-mean-square strength of 28 ns and a full-width at half-maximum correlation length of 3.6 mm. We show experimental results wherein multi-tap FIR filters decrease sidelobe energy in the resulting 2D spatial response while achieving a narrow mainlobe. We also show results where the FIR beamformer improves the contrast to noise ratio (CNR) in simulated B-mode cyst images by more than 4 dB. Our algorithm has the potential to significantly improve ultrasound beamforming in any application where the system response is reasonably well characterized. Furthermore, this algorithm can be used to increase contrast and resolution in one-way beamforming systems such as acousto-optic and opto-acoustic imaging.     

Frequency Downconverting Fiber Grating-Based Beamformers for High-Capacity Phased Arrays

A technique is presented to remove the beat noise limitation in multibeam beam formers using a simple all-optical microwave frequency downconversion technique prior to performing the true-time delay equalization in the optical domain. The frequency conversion concept enables a significant increase in beam-number capac ity to be achieved due to the elimination of beat noise limits, and also effectively removes the power penalty due to chromatic dispersion limitations of the chirped grating units in the beamformer. The Bragg grating requirements for the frequency converting beamforming network are analyzed and show that tanh-profile apodized gratings can meet the isolation, reflectivity, and narrow bandwidth requirements. For an X-band phased array, more than a twofold increase in beam capacity is shown through the use of the frequency conversion technique with the grating-based beamformer, and the resulting beamformer has the minimum number of optical interconnects with true-time delay operation.     

Group delay locking of coherently combined broadband lasers

We demonstrate a method for single-detector coherent sensing and automated coalignment of group delays in a coherently combined laser array, enabling robust coherent combining of broadband sources despite initial path mismatches exceeding the laser coherence length. The method is based on Fourier-domain filtering of the coherently combined laser beam to extract error signals, and it is equally applicable to controlling both spatial and temporal misalignments.     

Beamforming correction for dipole measurement using two-dimensional microphone arrays

In this paper, a beamforming correction for identifying dipole sources by means of phased microphone array measurements is presented and implemented numerically and experimentally. Conventional beamforming techniques, which are developed for monopole sources, can lead to significant errors when applied to reconstruct dipole sources. A previous correction technique to microphone signals is extended to account for both source location and source power for two-dimensional microphone arrays. The new dipole-beamforming algorithm is developed by modifying the basic source definition used for beamforming. This technique improves the previous signal correction method and yields a beamformer applicable to sources which are suspected to be dipole in nature. Numerical simulations are performed, which validate the capability of this beamformer to recover ideal dipole sources. The beamforming correction is applied to the identification of realistic aeolian-tone dipoles and shows an improvement of array performance on estimating dipole source powers.     

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。     

Observer-based beamforming algorithm for acoustic array signal processing

In the field of noise identification with microphone arrays, conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamforming is the most popular signal processing technique. However, acoustic imaging results that are generated by DAS beamforming are easily influenced by background noise, particularly for in situ wind tunnel tests. Even when arithmetic averaging is used to statistically remove the interference from the background noise, the results are far from perfect because the interference from the coherent background noise is still present. In addition, DAS beamforming based on arithmetic averaging fails to deliver real-time computational capability. An observer-based approach is introduced in this paper. This so-called observer-based beamforming method has a recursive form similar to the state observer in classical control theory, thus holds a real-time computational capability. In addition, coherent background noise can be gradually rejected in iterations. Theoretical derivations of the observer-based beamforming algorithm are carefully developed in this paper. Two numerical simulations demonstrate the good coherent background noise rejection and real-time computational capability of the observer-based beamforming, which therefore can be regarded as an attractive algorithm for acoustic array signal processing.     

基于半定规划和秩-1分解的稳健波束形成

针对标准Capon波束形成器在存在导向矢量失配时性能急剧下降问题, 提出了一种基于半定规划和秩-1分解的稳健波束形成算法. 该方法通过对实际导向矢量的估计提高自适应波束形成算法稳健性. 首先分别从干扰抑制和噪声抑制两个方面推导了新导向矢量应满足的约束条件, 并证明了利用矩阵滤波器构造约束条件的合理性; 构造了估计最优导向矢量的优化问题并将其转化为易于求解的松弛半定规划问题, 同时引入秩-1分解理论用于优化问题的求解. 仿真分析表明, 与目前较为常见的算法相比, 本文算法只需利用期望信号可能入射区间这一先验信息, 能获得更高输出信干噪比和功率估计精度. 关键词： 稳健自适应波束形成 半定规划 秩-1分解 导向矢量估计     

球体表面圆环阵模态域稳健高增益波束形成方法研究

通过对考虑障板影响下噪声互谱矩阵的精确求解,给出了一种计算刚性球体表面圆环阵阵增益的模型,并在此基础上提出了一种模态域二阶锥规划稳健高增益波束形成方法。该方法根据相位模态波束形成理论,将阵元域稳健加权向量转换为模态域的稳健模态系数,从而设计出不同模态阶数下的稳健高增益波束。由于采用了白噪声增益约束以及低频段较低的模态阶数,该方法提高了超增益波束形成器的稳健性。仿真结果表明该方法能够提供更多的稳健波束形成的方案,在多个关联的波束性能指标之间获得比常规方法和阵元域稳健性方法更合理的折衷。      

Optimum beamformer in correlated source environments

A new method for overcoming signal cancellation problems due to correlated interferences which occur in a minimum variance distortionless response beamformer is proposed. Instead of decorrelating the correlated interferences, the coherently combining signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (CC-SINR) beamformer regards them as replicas of the desired signal and coherently combines them with the desired signal. This method uses an eigenvector constraint that suppresses only noise and uncorrelated interferences but retains the desired signal and correlated interferences. The CC-SINR beamformer does not require any preliminary information on correlated interferences. The signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of the proposed beamformer output was compared to that of a conventional SINR beamformer when correlated interference, uncorrelated interference, and white noise exist. In addition, various key parameters that affect the performance of the beamformer, such as signal-to-noise ratio, uncorrelated interference-to-noise ratio, angular separation between signals, attenuation factor, phase delay of correlated interference, and the number of sensors were analyzed. All of the experimental results were in good agreement with the analytical results.