Beam pattern analysis for beam homogenization of conformal array sonar

Sub-arrays of arbitrary conformal array have different geometric shape through steering direction, thus the beam patterns of sub-arrays are always non-uniform. In this paper, we apply the beam pattern synthesis method using convex optimization into the conformal array, and shows the improvement of uniformity of beam performance. The simulation is performed with the conformal array of cut-sphere shape. As a result, the standard deviation of 3 dB beamwidth in elevation is greatly reduced but the directivity index is also reduced. To alleviate this trade-off, we propose a convex optimization using a shading function.