Distributed parallel processing techniques for adaptive sonar beamforming

Quiet submarine threats and high clutter in the littoral environment increase computation and communication demands on beamforming arrays, particularly for applications that require in-array autonomous operation. By coupling each transducer node in a distributed array with a microprocessor, and networking them together, embedded parallel processing for adaptive beamformers can glean advantages in execution speed, fault tolerance, scalability, power, and cost. In this paper, a novel set of techniques for the parallelization of adaptive beamforming algorithms is introduced for in-array sonar signal processing. A narrowband, unconstrained, Minimum Variance Distortionless Response (MVDR) beamformer is used as a baseline to investigate the efficiency and effectiveness of this method in an experimental fashion. Performance results are also included, among them execution times, parallel efficiencies, and memory requirements, using a distributed system testbed comprised of a cluster of workstations connected by a conventional network.