An Efficient Destructive Interference Based on Side Lobe Suppression Method in SONAR Beamforming

A novel beamforming technique that resembles the principle of interference is proposed for sonar arrays to suppress the side lobes while the main lobe is kept intact. It uses two window functions. The first one is a rectangular function that produces a primary beam pattern. A secondary new window function is derived and its beam pattern is steered such that the null or trough of the main lobe of the new window coincides with the peak or crest of the first side lobe of the rectangular window and so on to other major side lobes. Pattern multiplication was used to get a final beam pattern. The approach is simulated and verified through a sonar array with 24 hydrophone sensors.

Femtosecond Laser Fabricated Apodized Fiber Bragg Gratings Based on Energy Regulation

In this paper, an energy regulation method based on the combination of a half-wave plate (HWP) and a polarization beam splitter (PBS) is proposed for the fabrication of apodized fiber gratings, which can effectively improve the side lobe suppression ratio of high-reflectivity fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) fabricated by femtosecond laser. The apodized FBGs prepared by this method has good repeatability and flexibility. By inputting different types of apodization functions through the program, the rotation speed of the stepping motor can be adjusted synchronously, and then the position of the HWP can be accurately controlled so that the laser energy can be distributed as an apodization function along the axial direction of the fiber. By using the energy apodization method, the gratings with a reflectivity of 75% and a side lobe suppression ratio of 25 and 32 dB are fabricated in the fiber with a core diameter of 9 and 4.4 μm, respectively. The temperature and strain sensitivities of the energy-apodized fiber gratings with a core diameter of 4.4 μm are 10.36 pm/°C and 0.9 pm/με, respectively. The high-reflectivity gratings fabricated by this energy apodization method are expected to be used in high-power narrow-linewidth lasers and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems.