Patent ID: 7133326

Claim:
System for synthetic aperture beamforming with a moving sonar array, the system comprising: a beamforming module to transmit a plurality of transmit signals to impinge upon a surface, ones of the plurality of transmit signals transmitted at a different spatial positions of the moving sonar array, to receive a plurality of return echoes from the surface with the moving sonar array, each of the plurality of return echoes associated with a respective one of the plurality of transmit signals, and to beamform selected ones of the plurality of return echoes to provide a plurality of beamformed signals; a coarse altitude module to generate a plurality of coarse altitudes of the moving sonar array; and a fine altitude difference/horizontal displacement module to generate a plurality of fine altitudes and a plurality of fine horizontal displacements of the moving sonar array from correlations associated with selected ones of the plurality of beamformed signals.