Layout-optimized cylindrical sonar arrays

The cost of sonars scales to the number of active elements. Therefore, it is favorable to reduce the number of elements without loss in imaging quality. This is a combinatorial problem, but of such a large dimension, even for small arrays, that an exhaustive search is futile. In this work, we have found layout-optimized sparsed cylindrical arrays, i.e. arrays with binary weights. In underwater applications, with demands for omni-directional imaging, cylindrical arrays have shown to have beneficial qualities, and are commonly used in fishery. We have found that to optimize the layout of the cylindrical array it is sufficient to optimize a small subarray. With a reasonable number of elements in the elevation direction, finding the optimal array is then possible through an exhaustive search. The cylindrical array was then sparsed so that each line of elements in the elevation direction were chosen to correspond to the subarray array.