A NARROW BEAMWIDTH ADVANCED ACOUSTIC ARRAY MEASUREMENT SYSTEM - FEASIBILITY STUDY AND CONCEPTUAL DESIGN

FOR PHASE I, AMSI PROPOSES TO IDENTIFY AND ESTABLISH THE TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY OF VARIOUS ADVANCED ACOUSTIC ARRAY CONCEPTS. THREE GENERIC APPROACHES ARE CURRENTLY IDENTIFIED: 1) OPTIMIZE THE SENSOR DESIGN (I.E., DIRECTIONAL SENSORS, ETC.), 2) OPTIMIZE HYDROPHONE/ GROUP/ARRAY GEOMETRY (I.E., MULTI-APERTURES, ETC.), AND 3) IMPLEMENT SIGNAL PROCESSING TECHNIQUES (I.E., VARIOUS ANALYTIC CONTINUATION TECHNIQUES). MORE TECHNIQUES MAY RESULT FROM THE COMPREHENSIVE LITERATURE SEARCH. THE MOST VIABLE TECHNIQUE(S) WILL THEN BE COMPLETELY EVALUATED AND RESULT IN A DETAILED CONCEPTUAL DESIGN, SUPPORTED BY ANALYTIC ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE PREDICTIONS. THE FINAL REPORT WILL DETAIL THIS DESIGN AND THE EXPECTED ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE AND COULD BE UTILIZED TO DIRECT PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT, PHASE II.