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.