Synthetic-aperture sonar imaging: system analysis, image formation, and motion compensation

This paper presents an overview of various components of the development and implementation of synthetic aperture sonar systems for high-resolution underwater imaging: including data acquisition systems, physical aperture image formation, and motion estimation and compensation for synthetic-aperture image formation. The description of the data acquisition systems includes multiple element arrays, insonification waveforms, formation of illumination beam patterns, and array-element calibration techniques. The formation of preliminary physical aperture images includes time-delay estimation, image formation algorithms, and resolution analysis. Tomographic superposition for synthetic-aperture image formation includes various techniques for the detection and compensation of platform motion for high-accuracy image registration and alignment. The results of experiments based on sea-test data are also included.