Amplitude shading and phase weighting of a vertical linear array in the SOFAR channel by the linear minimum variance estimation technique

Abstract

A single linear vertical passive array is used in the 'SOFAR' channel to determine the depth of a single underwater source at a constant range. The phase and amplitude weights applied to the array are determined by the linear minimum variance estimation technique. The resulting beam pattern is compared to the conventional time domain beamformer. It was found that the linear minimum variance estimation technique of amplitude shading and phase weighting was significantly superior to the conventional beamformer.