Beamforming a bent array

Abstract

A good choice of reference axis was described for beamforming a bent towed array when the number of beams and their steering angles were optimized for the linear geometry. It was found that in such a system, the signal processing algorithms and display layouts must be designed to handle the changing array shape without human intervention. Issues such as defining the number of beams and their steering angles as well as their reference line from which the angles were measured was also described. The results show that the use of an appropriate reference axis could reduce the loss in detection coverage that results from scalloping.