Temporal domain processing for a synthetic aperture array

A method for the synthesis of an aperture with improved bearing resolution and signal gain is described. The proposed method temporally synthesizes data from an overlap correlator, which is obtained by aperture domain averaging of phase differences. Previous studies, such as extended towed array measurements (ETAM), had a restriction in that the overlapped hydrophones between successive measurements of a towed array were required to have identical positions in space. In this paper, however, it is shown that the phase correction factors can be estimated without restriction on the positions of the overlapped hydrophones. This implies that the proposed method is able to utilize more snapshots to extend the towed array. Simulation results showed that the proposed method resulted in higher estimation accuracy than ETAM. In addition, the effects of coherency and other systematic errors on the proposed method were examined.