Improving the resolution of bearing in passive sonar arrays by eigenvalue analysis

A method of improving the bearing-resolving capabilities of a passive array is discussed. This method is an adaptive beamforming method, having many similarities to the minimum energy approach. The evaluation of energy in each steered beam is preceded by an eigenvalue-eigenvector analysis of the empirical correlation matrix. Modification of the computations according to the eigenvalue structure results in improved resolution of the bearing of acoustic sources. The increase in resolution is related to the time-bandwidth product of the computation of the correlation matrix. However, this increased resolution is obtained at the expense of array gain.