Sonar Beamforming Requirements
Sonar itself has many applications, such as wide-area-search-and-ranging, underwater imaging sonars such as side-scan sonar and acoustic cameras.
Sonar beamforming implementation is similar in general technique but varies significantly in detail compared to electromagnetic system beamforming implementation. Sonar applications vary from 1 Hz to as high as 2 MHz, and array elements may be few and large, or number in the hundreds yet very small. This will shift sonar beamforming design efforts significantly between demands of such system components as the "front end" (transducers, preamps and digitizers) and the actual beamformer computational hardware downstream. High frequency, focused beam, multi-element imaging-search sonars and acoustic cameras often implement fifth-order spatial processing that places strains equivalent to Aegis radar demands on the processors.
Many sonar systems, such as on torpedoes, are made up of arrays of up to 100 elements that must accomplish beam steering over a 100 degree field of view and work in both active and passive modes.
Sonar arrays are used both actively and passively in 1, 2, and 3 dimensional arrays.
- 1 dimensional "line" arrays are usually in multi-element passive systems towed behind ships and in single or multi-element side scan sonar.
- 2 dimensional "planar" arrays are common in active/passive ship hull mounted sonars and some side-scan sonar.
- 3 dimensional spherical and cylindrical arrays are used in 'sonar domes' in the modern submarine and ships.
Sonar differs from radar in that in some applications such as wide-area-search all directions often need to be listened to, and in some applications broadcast to, simultaneously. Thus a multibeam system is needed. In a narrowband sonar receiver the phases for each beam can be manipulated entirely by signal processing software, as compared to present radar systems that use hardware to 'listen' in a single direction at a time.
Sonar also uses beamforming to compensate for the significant problem of the slower propagation speed of sound as compared to that of electromagnetic radiation. In side-look-sonars, the speed of the towing system or vehicle carrying the sonar is moving at sufficient speed to move the sonar out of the field of the returning sound "ping". In addition to focusing algorithms intended to improve reception, many side scan sonars also employ beam steering to look forward and backward to "catch" incoming pulses that would have been missed by a single sidelooking beam.
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