Synthesis of aperiodic planar arrays by a stochastic approach

Two dimensional arrays offer the potential for producing three-dimensional acoustic imaging. The major problem is the complexity arising from the large number of elements in such arrays. In this paper, a synthesis method is proposed that is aimed at designing an aperiodic sparse two dimensional array to be used together with a conventional beamformer. The stochastic algorithm of simulated annealing has been utilized to minimize the number of elements necessary to produce a spatial response that meets given requirements. The proposed method is highly innovative, as it can face very large arrays, optimize both positions and weight coefficients, synthesize asymmetric arrays and generate array configurations that are valid for every scan direction. Several results are presented, showing a notable improvement in the array characteristics and performances over those reported in the literature.