Adaptive beam-forming algorithm for mine detection in shallow water

Acoustic detection of mine like objects in a shallow water environment is often limited by reverberation. This paper describes a toroidal array beamforming methodology for a shallow water environment, whereby vehicle attitude data is used to adaptively stabilize and scan several narrow sonar beams down a water column. By averaging over several beams the reverberation level is reduced, thus increasing the signal to noise ratio and greatly improving the area coverage rate for the sonar.