Time-domain compressive beamforming with prior information for active sonar single-ping reconstruction

Reconstructing the target reflectivity field with high accuracy can provide important information for active sonar target detection and identification. However, existing beamforming methods for active sonar single-ping reconstruction suffer from limited resolution and reverberation interference, which deteriorate the reconstructed target reflectivity field. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a Time-domain Compressive Beamforming with Prior Information (TCBPI) method to reconstruct the target reflectivity field using single-ping array data, which improves resolution by promoting a sparse representation of the data. Prior information about the echo waveform is incorporated into the sensing matrix of TCBPI, enabling range super-resolution and higher angular resolution. Additionally, to adaptively estimate a precise reverberation level parameter for TCBPI, a two-stage reweighted method is proposed. This method combines the iterative reweighted algorithm with the adaptive estimation of reverberation level, enabling the reconstruction of a highly accurate target reflectivity field even in complex reverberant environments. The performance of TCBPI is validated with both simulated and sea trial data. The results demonstrate that TCBPI attains range super-resolution, high angular resolution, and effective reverberation suppression in monostatic active sonar single-ping reconstruction, greatly outperforming conventional beamforming and single snapshot compressive beamforming.