Development of a generic signal processing structure providing array gain improvements for real time systems including 1-dimensional or 2-dimensional arrays of sensors

This investigation aims to define an advanced signal processing structure that will allow the implementation of a wide variety of conventional, adaptive and synthetic aperture signal processing schemes in 1-dimensional (1-D) and 2-dimensional (2-D) real time systems and will exploit processing concept similarities among radar, sonar and medical tomography imaging systems. The long term objective of this project is the re-definition of the current signal processing approach in 1-D and 2-D real time systems by introducing advanced signal processing schemes to account for the effects that cause performance degradation due to the impact of partially correlated noise sources. Preliminary real data results of the advanced signal processing structure implemented in a line array system demonstrate that adaptive and synthetic aperture processing schemes achieve robust performance and provide improvements in array gain for signals embedded in partially correlated noise fields. The performance improvements, however, of the adaptive and synthetic aperture processing schemes are effective only for specific applications. This restriction has been the basis of our generic approach that a synergism between the conventional and advanced processing schemes is required for effective practical use of signal processing developments.