Remedying the effects of array shape distortion on the spatial filtering of acoustic data from a line array of hydrophones

The effects of both small perturbations and large deformations to the array´s shape on both conventional and adaptive beamformers are shown for two frequencies: the spatial Nyquist frequency (or design frequency) of the array and a frequency about three times greater. Large shape deformations lead to a decrease in the conventional beamformer´s output power for a beam steered in the direction of the signal source, together with an increase in the sidelobe levels (or secondary maxima), while small perturbations in the array shape have little effect. Signal suppression is observed to be far greater for the adaptive beamformer because it is very sensitive to system errors. The imposition of a weight norm constraint on the adaptive beamformer reduces the signal suppression only for small shape perturbations array shape estimation techniques are needed to reduce signal suppression for large shape deformations. The adverse effects of a nonlinear array shape on both conventional and adaptive beamforming are shown to be substantially reduced by applying techniques that estimate the coordinates of the hydrophones prior to beamforming