On the design of a transversal filter bank for parallel processing multiple image lines in real-time acoustic imaging

We present a new method for designing a transversal filter bank for parallel processing echo data in real-time active acoustic imaging. The method is based on a discretized linear spatio-temporal formulation of an imaging system which uses transmitter arrays with coded-excitation. The filter coefficients are derived from a pseudo-inverse operator which not only decouples echoes from different image lines, but also provides pulse compression along the range direction. The new method, together with the proposed coded-excitation imaging modality, may find many applications in sonar, NDE and biomedical imaging areas