IP Library Granted Patent US 11,385,348
Granted Patent B2
US 11,385,348 · App. 16/457,764 · Granted Jul 12, 2022

Wideband sonar receiver and sonar signal processing algorithms

Inventors: Paul Stokes (Fleet, GB); Phil Webb (Hampshire, GB)
Assignee: Teledyne FLIR, LLC
G01S15/36G01S7/52G01S7/52001G01S7/526G01S7/527G01S7/5273G01S7/5276G01S15/02G01S15/104G01S15/105G01S15/108G01S15/14G01S15/50G01S15/582G01S15/96
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 11,385,348
App. No.
16/457,764
Granted
Jul 12, 2022
Kind
B2
Abstract

A wideband sonar receiver is provided that includes: a selectable bandpass filter adapted to filter a received sonar signal to produce a filtered signal and a correlator adapted to correlate the baseband samples with baseband replica samples to provide a correlated signal. In addition, the wideband sonar receiver may include a shaping filter to shape unshaped received pulses. Finally, a variety of sonar processing algorithms are described with regard to reducing clutter and interference, target detection, and bottom detection.

Claims (37)

1. A wideband signal receiver, comprising:

a digital stage adapted to digitize samples of a received wideband signal to produce filtered samples of the received wideband signal; and

a correlator adapted to correlate the filtered samples with replica samples to provide a correlated signal, wherein the correlator comprises a digital signal processor (DSP) configured to divide a frequency domain representation of the replica samples (FRS) by a frequency domain representation of the received wideband signal (FS) to provide a first filter response, to multiply a shaping filter response by a conjugate of the FRS to provide a second filter response, and to multiply the second filter response by the FS to provide a third filter response.

2. The wideband signal receiver of claim 1 , wherein the digital stage is adapted to baseband and decimate the received wideband signal.

3. The wideband signal receiver of claim 1 , further comprising an analog stage adapted to modify the received wideband signal.

4. The wideband signal receiver of claim 3 , wherein the analog stage comprises a selectable bandpass filter adapted to filter the received wideband signal to produce a filtered signal.

5. The wideband signal receiver of claim 4 , wherein the selectable bandpass filter comprises a plurality of selectable bandpass filter bands.

6. The wideband signal receiver of claim 4 , wherein the analog stage further comprises a variable gain amplifier adapted to apply a time-varying gain to the filtered signal from the selectable bandpass filter to produce an amplified filtered signal.

7. The wideband signal receiver of claim 6 , wherein the variable gain amplifier applies an increasing gain to the filtered signal as a function of time.

8. The wideband signal receiver of claim 6 , wherein the analog stage further comprises an anti-alias filter adapted to filter the amplified filtered signal from the variable gain amplifier.

9. The wideband signal receiver of claim 3 , further comprising an analog-to-digital converter for converting an analog output of the analog stage into a digital input for the digital stage.

10. The wideband signal receiver of claim 1 , wherein the received wideband signal is a sonar signal.

11. A method of processing a wideband signal, the method comprising:

converting a received wideband signal into a frequency domain representation of the received wideband signal (FS);

converting a replica sample of the received wideband signal into a frequency domain representation of the replica sample (FRS);

in the frequency domain, dividing the FRS by the FS to obtain a first filter response;

in the frequency domain, multiplying the first filter response by a conjugate of the FRS to obtain a second filter response; and

in the frequency domain, multiplying the second filter response by the FS to obtain a third filter response.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising transforming the third filter response into a time domain representation.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein transforming the third filter response into the time domain representation comprises using an inverse fast Fourier transform algorithm.

14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising extracting a power of the third filter response and taking the log of the power to product a detected echo signal.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the received wideband signal comprises a chirp pulse.

16. The method of claim 11 , wherein the received wideband signal comprises a frequency-modulated sonar signal.

17. The method of claim 11 , further comprising digitizing the received wideband signal to produce digitized samples.

18. A method of processing a wideband signal, the method comprising:

filtering a received analog signal into a filtered analog signal;

converting the filtered analog signal into a digital signal; and

applying a shaping filter to the digital signal in the digital domain to produce a shaped signal, comprising:

converting the digital signal into a frequency domain representation of the digital signal (FS);

converting a replica sample of the digital signal into a frequency domain representation of the replica sample (FRS);

in the frequency domain, dividing the FRS by the FS to obtain a shaping filter response;

in the frequency domain, multiplying the shaping filter response by a conjugate of the FRS to obtain an intermediate shaping filter response; and

in the frequency domain, multiplying the intermediate shaping filter response by the FS to obtain the shaped signal.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein filtering the received analog signal comprises:

filtering the received analog signal using a selectable bandpass filter to produce a filtered signal; and

applying a time-varying gain to the filtered signal.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the received analog signal comprises a sonar signal.

Assignments (2)
MERGER AND CHANGE OF NAME Recorded Nov 24, 2021
From: FLIR SYSTEMS, INC.; FIREWORK MERGER SUB II, LLC
To: TELEDYNE FLIR, LLC
Reel/Frame 058250/0300 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jul 15, 2019
From: STOKES, PAUL; WEBB, PHIL
To: FLIR SYSTEMS, INC.
Reel/Frame 049753/0614 →