Patent ID: 7675819

Claim:
A sonar system for detecting underwater acoustic signals, which comprises: a plurality of hydrophone units capable of converting acoustic impulses to electrical signals, said hydrophone units being substantially vertically oriented when deployed in a body of water, and said hydrophone units occupying at least some of the positions of an N×M rectangular horizontal array wherein N is the number of rows and M is the number of columns in the array, wherein corner positions of the rectangular horizontal array are not occupied by hydrophone units, and wherein the rectangular horizontal array having corner positions not occupied by hydrophone units is embedded in a polymeric encapsulant; electronics, including a processor, for applying two-dimensional Chebyshev mathematical weighting to the electrical signals from the individual hydrophone units such that each individual signal from each hydrophone unit is assigned a respective weighting number according to its position in the rectangular horizontal array and a numerical value is assigned to each individual signal corresponding to the strength of the electrical signal as adjusted by the respective weighting number; and a canister in which the hydrophone units are loaded and from which said hydrophone units are deployed into the body of water.