“The implementation of a massively parallel RISC-based digital transmitter for multi-dimensional acoustic imaging”

The design and construction of a massively parallel RISC-based digital underwater acoustic transmitter and array transducer assembly are presented. One hundred and twenty-two (122) individual RISC-based microcontrollers create the necessary channel timing and individual element transmit waveform signals to allow narrow acoustic beams to be formed at high sweep rates. This unique combination of state-of-the-art electronically reprogrammable devices provide this architecture a high degree of flexibility for selecting transmit waveforms (i.e. PN sequences, chirps, sinusoids, etc.), programmable steering angles, and beam steering sweep rates. This massively parallel design provides a scaleable architecture making it ideally suited for conformal acoustic arrays