Simulation of a single ping ultrasonic bearing estimation design using spatiotemporal filtering

A low-power, compact, lightweight architecture for an in-air SONAR device is proposed and simulated. The sensor is intended to aid in the autonomous navigation of a micro-unmanned aerial vehicle. Inspired by the manner in which bats use ultrasound to sense and navigate their environments, the sensor transmits a single ping and uses an array of small ultrasonic microphones to detect echoes. The incident angle of returning echoes is determined using spatiotemporal filtering and a simple classifier. The distal range of the sensor is a critical design constraint due to the high attenuation of ultrasound in air, therefore the ability of the sensor to handle weak signals (a low signal to noise ratio) is of utmost concern. The sensor is shown to have an RMS error of 1.1⁰ over the range [-60⁰ 60⁰] for non-overlapping signals with SNR of 10dB. Overlapping signals are detected with only a minor decrease in accuracy.