Synthetic stationary array processing for a towed array in maneuver

When long towed arrays undergo significant maneuvering, the array shape rapidly changes within a processing interval that degrades the array beamforming performance. Towed arrays are known to behave much like pulleys through the water. Thus, hydrophones on the towed array will closely follow the motion of the towed point through the water with a time lag relative to the towing speed. From this concept, it follows that, given an appropriate time alignment, a signal snapshot from the rear section of the array can be interpreted as a signal snapshot from the front section of the array at a later time. This synthetic stationary array processing (SSAP) divides the physical array into highly overlapping sequential segments and, using these segments, forms time‐lagged snapshots of a stationary array. As a result, this synthetic stationary array has a reduced size and shape that is defined by the first array segment at the beginning of a processing interval. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this process, real ...