ASA 127th Meeting M.I.T. 1994 June 6-10

4pUW1. Array shading for matched-field processing.

Ellen Livingston

Naval Res. Lab., Washington, DC 20375

Michael B. Porter

New Jersey Inst. Technol., Newark, NJ 07102

Matched-field processing (MFP) is a direct generalization of plane-wave beamforming to correct sonar systems for the effects of refraction in the ocean. However, operational sonar systems never use a simple plane-wave source. As is well known, the array should be shaded or tapered to reduce sidelobes. This same principle is valid for MFP; however, shading reduces only a subset of the MFP sidelobes. How to do the shading and when it is beneficial will be discussed.