Off-broadside main beam design for frequency invariant beamformers

Abstract

In a previously proposed design method for frequency invariant beamforming, the design for the case of an off-broadside main beam is not satisfactory. After a detailed analysis, we propose two methods to overcome this problem: one is to increase the length of the FIR filter attached to each sensor, as a result, we need to sample the transformed desired response more densely in the associated direction; the other one is to design a broadside main beam first, then it is convolved with appropriate steering delay filters. Design examples show that the two methods can provide satisfactory results.