Airborne ultrasound linear phased array for localising solid objects

An ultrasound linear phased array is described that employed multiple transmitters working on pulse-echo mode. A computer was used to control the time-delay of the driving pulses to realise the acoustic beam steering electronically. The main advantage of the proposed electronic ultrasound beam steering system over mechanical driven sonar systems is its rapid ranging ability and capability of tracing moving objects. The signal processing method of extracting main beam profile from the side lobes is also described.