Maximum Likelihood Deconvolution of Beamformed Images with Signal-Dependent Speckle Fluctuations from Gaussian Random Fields: With Application to Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS)

Wide area acoustic remote sensing often involves the use of coherent receiver arrays to determine the spatial distribution of sources and scatterers at any instant. The resulting acoustic intensity images are typically corrupted by signal-dependent noise from Gaussian random field fluctuations arising from the central limit theorem and have a spatial resolution that depends on the incident direction, sensing array aperture and wavelength. Here, we use the maximum likelihood method to deconvolve the intensity distribution measured on a coherent line array assuming a discrete angular distribution of incident plane waves. Instantaneous wide area population density images of fish aggregations measured with Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) are deconvolved to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach in improving angular resolution over conventional planewave beamforming.