Robust Superdirective Beamforming for Circular Arrays With Acoustic Vector Sensors

Unlike acoustic pressure sensors, acoustic vector sensors (AVSs) measure both acoustic pressure and particle velocity. Circular AVS arrays, made up of multiple vector sensors, offer better performance compared to circular acoustic pressure arrays. The noise cross correlation matrix of circular vector sensor arrays in isotropic noise exhibits a block-circulant property when its entries are properly arranged. Utilizing this property, a superdirectivity model based on eigenbeam decomposition and synthesis can be conveniently applied to circular vector sensor arrays, enhancing performance and reducing computational complexity. Simulations indicate that the proposed method synthesizes robust superdirective beampatterns using complete closed-form solution or reduced computational effort, yielding results similar to optimization-based methods for circular AVS arrays.