HIGH-RESOLUTION BEAMFORMING WITH GEVEV PROCESSING

NEW GEVEV DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING TECHNIQUES CAN PROVIDE SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVED PERFORMANCE WITH HIGH RESOLUTIION EVEN FOR SMALL ARRAYS. THE SIGNAL PROCESSORS USE GENERALIZED EIGENVECTOR/ EIGENVALUE (GEVEV) SOLUTIONS FOR THE ESTIMATED SIGNAL-PLUS-NOISE MATRIX IN THE METRIC OF THE ESTIMATED NOISE-ONLY MATRIX. ALMOST ALL SIMILAR INVESTIGATIONS HAVE RELATED TO INCOHERENT NOISE (THAT WE CALL THE EVEV CASE); RESULTS WITH VERY HIGH RESOLUTION WERE ACHIEVED, EVEN WITH OTHER SIGNALS NEARBY. FAVORABLE SEPARATION IS EXPECTED OF COHERENT INTERFERENCE (INCLUDING MULTIPATHS) AND BROADBAND SIGNALS. EVEV PROCESSORS HAVE GOOD RESOLUTION FOR LINEAR ARRAYS EVEN WITH ISOTROPIC INSTEAD OF INCOHERENT NOISE BUT SIGNIFICANT ANGULAR ERRORS OCCUR FOR NEAR-ENDFIRE ARRIVALS, SHOW ING THE NEED FOR GEVEV. GEVEV IS COMPUTATIONALLY INTENSIVE, BUT NEW VLSI DEVELOPMENTS GUARANTEE PRACTICAL DESIGNS FOR DOD. PROPOSED GEVEV EFFORTS INVOLVE SIMULATIONS TO VERIFY ALGORITHM DEVELOPMENTS AND ANALYSES WITH DATA FROM REAL ARRAYS. THE PHASE I EFFORT WILL INVESTIGATE BOTH ACOUSTIC AND HF SETS OF REAL DATA AND WILL EVALUATE AT LEAST ONE SET. APPLICATIONS WILLL BE SOUGHT IN WHICH THE NOISE-ONLY MATRIX FOR REAL ARRAYS CAN BE ESTIMATED EFFECTIVELY. CRITICAL INVESTIGATIONS WILL BE CONDUCTED TO ESTABLISH GEVEV REQUIREMENTS FOR PAHSE II. HIGH-RESOLUTION GEVEV SYSTEMS ARE EXPECTED TO HAVE NEW BETTER LIMITS OF RESOLUTION AS A FUNCTION OF GAIN AND ARRAY DIMENSIONS, AND LIFE-CYCLE COST REDUCED BY NEW VLSI REAL-TIME HARDWARE.