High frequency sector scan sonar data preprocessing and beamforming

A high frequency sector scan sonar emulator has been developed as part of DSTO´s advanced mine warfare sonar research program. The emulator is used to produce benchmarking results of existing (conventional) sector scan sonar systems, to understand quantitatively their limitations, and to develop novel intelligent signal/image processing algorithms to enhance the sonar detection and classification performance. This paper details the conventional data preprocessing and beamforming of a high frequency sector scan sonar, and describes the preliminary study of a time-frequency filtering method for suppressing reverberation noise in the sensor data and an adaptive beam forming technique for reducing the masking effect of a strong target on a weak target located at the same range bin in the sonar image.