The Design of 3D Forward-looking Sonar and Data Processing Method

The 3D forward looking sonar (3DFLS) is mainly used to detect obstacles, targets and seabed in the 3D space in front of the carrier, and is an important acoustic device installed on the underwater carrier. Combined with the characteristics of underwater topography and environment under shallow water conditions, this paper analyzes a new type of sonar design and data processing method: using a vertical emission arrays to attenuate the effects of multipath propagation, horizontally using symmetric multiple layers of circular arc array to maintain a constant resolution. A method combined conventional beamforming and direction of arrival estimation (DOA) is used to break the limitation that the resolution is proportionate to the array aperture. The compact array structure and efficient data processing algorithms make this 3DFLS ideal for 3D acoustic imaging in shallow water environments.