Sparse beamforming for active underwater electrolocation

Weakly electric fish have the ability to navigate and locate prey in the dark using a unique weak electrosense system. Imitating that ability of electric fish, we develop an electric-field sensing system capable of high-resolution imaging of the surrounding environment, by use of a novel beamforming technique that exploits the sparsity of sources in a scanned space. Both simulation and experimental results show that the sparse beamforming technique accurately images not only a single object but also multiple objects with highly correlated signals.