KR101131058B1 - Device and method for high-speed multiple beamforming with distributed processing in time domain - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for forming multiple beam at a high speed by time domain distributing process and a device thereof are provided to avoid a redundant transmission of a sensor input for each operator, thereby forming the multiple beam at a high speed. CONSTITUTION: A plurality of sensors(610) samples an analog signal reflected or emitted from a target to a digital parallel signal. A plurality of signal converters(620) converts the digital parallel signal to digital serial signal. A plurality of operators(630) forms beam by using the digital serial signal. An adder(640) adds partial beam formed from the operators to form the final beam. Multiple beam is formed at a high speed by avoiding redundant transmission of a sensor input by each operator.

Description

Method for forming multiple beams at high speed through time-domain dispersion processing and apparatus for forming multiple beams using the same {DEVICE AND METHOD FOR HIGH-SPEED MULTIPLE BEAMFORMING WITH DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING IN TIME DOMAIN}

The present invention relates to a method for forming a multi-beams and an apparatus for forming a multi-beams using the same, and more particularly, to a method for forming a multi-beams at high speed through time-domain dispersion processing and to form a multi-beams using the same It relates to a device to.

In the underwater acoustic detection field, the detection of an object uses active acoustic detection technology using a received signal that transmits an acoustic signal, and a passive acoustic detection technology that detects an object by receiving an acoustic signal emitted by the object. In underwater sound detection, a plurality of acoustic sensors are arranged to increase the gain of a received signal, and a beam is formed using the signals received from the plurality of acoustic sensors. At this time, the formed beam is divided into narrow band sonar signal processing technology and wideband sonar signal processing technology according to the frequency band width to be used for detection. In general, wideband signal processing is known to distinguish a deceptive signal or a signal that may be falsely detected, in addition to a signal generated by a target, to accurately detect a target, and to increase resolution. However, compared to narrowband signal processing, wideband signal processing requires a large amount of signal processing for beamforming because the frequency band is increased by several orders of magnitude.

In hydroacoustic detection, in addition to broadband signal processing to accurately detect the target signal, it is also important to accurately determine the target orientation. In order to quickly determine the correct target orientation, multiple precise steering beams must be formed simultaneously over a wide range of wide azimuth angles. In general, in order to generate a precise steering beam, a sampling frequency of a signal acquired for each sensor must be high, and at the same time, a plurality of steering beams are required to detect a wide range of regions. This increases the beamforming complexity, thus increasing the complexity of the beamformer.

Due to the problems described above, the conventional underwater acoustic detection field uses a plurality of calculators to perform beamforming of signals having broadband signal characteristics at high speed and stability, and forms multiple beams by dividing the number of beams that the calculator can generate. It was. However, even with this method, since the sensor input transmission amount entering the input of each calculator is the same, when the input transmission amount is large, the number of beams that can be formed at a high speed by the calculator is small, which requires a large number of calculators. there was.

An object of the present invention is to provide a method for forming multiple beams at high speed through time-domain dispersion processing.

 Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for forming multiple beams at high speed through time-domain dispersion processing.

The apparatus for forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing according to the object of the present invention comprises a plurality of sensors for sampling an analog signal reflected or radiated from a target into a digital parallel signal, and digitally sampling the sampled digital parallel signal. And a plurality of signal converters for converting into serial signals, a plurality of calculators for beam forming using the digital serial signal, and a summer for adding the partial beams formed from the plurality of calculators to form a final beam. The digital serial signal is distributedly allocated in the same amount or in a predetermined input transmission amount according to the number.

The apparatus for forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing according to the present invention is specifically, the plurality of arithmetic unit, using a memory to which each converted digital serial signal is transmitted, and the digital serial signal stored in the memory It consists of a plurality of beamformers forming a beam.

 The apparatus for forming multiple beams at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing according to the present invention is more specifically the plurality of calculators are a personal computer (PC) or a digital signal processor (DSP).

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of forming a multi-beam at high speed through a time-domain dispersion process, and inputting a signal reflected or radiated from a target to a plurality of sensors, and converting an analog signal input to the plurality of sensors. Sampling the digital parallel signal, distributing the sampled digital parallel signal in an equal amount or a predetermined input transmission amount according to a number of arithmetic operators, and converting the distributed digital parallel signal into a digital serial signal; And transmitting the converted digital serial signals to a memory of an operator to form a partial beam, and summing the formed partial beams to form a final beam.

According to the present invention, a method of forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing may include the step of forming the partial beam in detail by multiplying a weight with each of a plurality of digital serial signals transmitted and stored in the memory; Summing the multiplied digital serial signals to form a partial beam, and summing the partial beams of the formed multiple operators to form a final beam.

According to the method for forming multiple beams at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing and the apparatus for forming multiple beams using the same, the multiple beams can be formed at high speed by avoiding redundant transmission of the sensor input for each operator. have.

1 is a conceptual diagram of a single beamforming method according to the prior art.
2 is a block diagram of a single beam forming apparatus according to the prior art.
3 is an internal processing diagram of a time domain beamformer according to the prior art.
4 is a block diagram of a multi-beam forming apparatus using a single operator according to the prior art.
5 is a block diagram of a multi-beam forming apparatus using a plurality of calculators according to the prior art.
6 is a block diagram of an apparatus for forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing according to the present invention.
7 is a flowchart of a method for forming multiple beams at high speed through time-domain dispersion processing according to the present invention.
8 is an internal process flow diagram of a time domain beamformer according to the prior art.

As the inventive concept allows for various changes and numerous embodiments, particular embodiments will be illustrated in the drawings and described in detail in the written description. However, this is not intended to limit the present invention to specific embodiments, it should be understood to include all modifications, equivalents, and substitutes included in the spirit and scope of the present invention. Like reference numerals are used for like elements in describing each drawing.

The terms first, second, A, B, etc. may be used to describe various components, but the components should not be limited by the terms. The terms are used only for the purpose of distinguishing one component from another. For example, without departing from the scope of the present invention, the first component may be referred to as the second component, and similarly, the second component may also be referred to as the first component. And / or < / RTI > includes any combination of a plurality of related listed items or any of a plurality of related listed items.

When a component is said to be "connected" or "connected" to another component, it may be directly connected to or connected to that other component, but it may be understood that another component may exist in between. Should be. On the other hand, when a component is said to be "directly connected" or "directly connected" to another component, it should be understood that there is no other component in between.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular example embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the present invention. Singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. In this application, the terms "comprise" or "having" are intended to indicate that there is a feature, number, step, operation, component, part, or combination thereof described in the specification, and one or more other features. It is to be understood that the present invention does not exclude the possibility of the presence or the addition of numbers, steps, operations, components, components, or a combination thereof.

Unless defined otherwise, all terms used herein, including technical or scientific terms, have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. Terms such as those defined in the commonly used dictionaries should be construed as having meanings consistent with the meanings in the context of the related art and shall not be construed in ideal or excessively formal meanings unless expressly defined in this application. Do not.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The method for forming multiple beams at high speed through the time-domain dispersion process and the apparatus for forming multiple beams using the same are based on the single beam forming method and the apparatus according to the prior art. Therefore, first, a single beamforming method and apparatus thereof according to the prior art will be described.

1 shows a conceptual diagram of a single beamforming method according to the prior art in the field of underwater sound detection. Although the beamforming method includes a method of forming a beam in a frequency domain in addition to the time domain, the method of forming a time domain has been widely used because it has an advantage that it can be implemented with a simpler structure. According to FIG. 1, a time delay k _i τ 120 for each sensor input for M sensor inputs x _i [n], i = 1, ..., M 110 is multiplied by a weight ( 130, and then, the sum of the processing results of all the sensors 140 is formed 150 to form a beam y [n] for steering a specific direction. This process is represented by the equation (1).

In this case, τ is a time interval for sampling the sensor input into a digital signal, and is defined as τ = 1 / f _s . Where f _s is the sampling frequency. K _i is an integer value that defines the time delay for each sensor and is related to the steering angle of the beam to be formed. In general, as the time delay unit interval τ is smaller, a beam that precisely steers a specific direction can be generated, which increases the sampling frequency ( f _s ), resulting in an increase in the amount of data and calculation amount of the sensor input for beam formation. appear. The formed beam y [n] comes out as a signal having a predetermined sampling frequency f _s in consideration of the steering angle, and a signal for actual detection is filtered to y [n] to obtain and process a desired signal. In this case, low-pass, high-pass, band-pass filtering, and quadrature demodulation, which process the characteristic frequency down to the baseband, are used according to desired signal characteristics. Thus, the frequency band of y [n] is divided into narrowband and wideband signals. In general, the sampling frequency f _s of the input signal of the sensor for beamforming is determined in consideration of the steering angle of the beam and the frequency band of the filtered signal of the beam. The present invention is a method and apparatus for forming a beam at high speed when the amount of input data of a sensor is large and the number of beams to be formed is high, and there is no limitation on filtering of the formed beam.

2 is a block diagram of a single beamforming apparatus according to the prior art in the field of underwater sound detection. According to FIG. 2, first, a digital signal sampled at a sampling frequency f _{s for} each sensor is obtained, and the parallel signals obtained for each sensor are converted into serial signals 220 to be converted into serial signals. The beam is formed 240 by transmitting it to 230. Meanwhile, FIG. 3 shows an internal processing diagram of the time domain beamformer 240 according to the prior art, and FIG. 8 is an internal processing flowchart of the time domain beamformer according to the prior art. 3 and 8 illustrate a process of receiving an input considering a time delay from each sensor signal stored in the memory 230 to form a beam.

 In FIG. 2, the amount of input data from the sensor for beamforming, which is converted into serial signals and transmitted to the memory, is represented by Equation 2.

Here, B _I represents the number of bits represented per sample when sampling the signal coming into the sensor into a digital signal. For example, assuming that f _s is 500 KHz and an input is acquired at 16 bits / sample for 100 sensors to form a beam having a precise steering angle, the input data transmission amount is about 800 Mbits / sec. To have.

Next, the data amount of one beam formed from the input data is expressed by Equation (3).

4 is a block diagram of a multi-beam forming apparatus using a single calculator according to the related art. In order to simultaneously form multiple beams, M sensors input x _i [n], i = 1, ..., M (410) are first converted into serial signals (420) and then the memory 430 of the operator. By transmitting to the multi-beam forming process 440 is performed. In the multi-beam forming process, the time delay k (j, i) τ corresponding to the multi-beam y _j [n], j = 1, ..., N _B (450) to be formed is given and the weight a (j, i) Multiply and then form multiple beams simultaneously by summing the processing results of all the sensors. This process is represented by the equation (4).

In addition, the calculation amount of the multiple beams output is increased by the number N _{B of} beams formed. In this case, when the number of sensors or the sampling frequency f _s is large, not only the input transmission amount R _I is large but also the amount of computation for forming the N _B multiple beams is increased. Due to the problem of the amount of transmission and the amount of calculation, multiple beams are generated using a plurality of calculators instead of one.

5 is a block diagram of a multi-beam forming apparatus using a plurality of calculators according to the prior art. In general, as many as the number of beams that can be processed by one operator among the N _B multiple beams to be formed are allocated to each operator and processed. In other words, assuming that the number of beams formed in one of the N operators 530 is N _Bi (i = 1, ..., N), the relationship shown in Equation 5 is established.

In this case, the calculator used may be a PC or a DSP (Digital Signal Processor), and the present invention is not limited to a specific calculator because there is a function capable of receiving and calculating data.

In order to implement a method for forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion process and an apparatus for forming the multi-beam using the same, it is necessary to first look at the beam forming principle through the time-domain dispersion process.

The process of forming a single beam for time-domain dispersion processing is a process of multiplying weights after the time delay for the input for each sensor and adding them as shown in Equation 1. At this time, when the number of sensors M increases, the input transmission amount according to the sampling frequency f _s determined for the direction to be steered reaches from several hundred Mbps to several Gbps. The input transmission amount of time takes a long time to perform beamforming separately from the operation of actually multiplying and adding. In other words, even if an operator capable of fast operation can take a long time to form a beam because no operation is performed unless data to be operated on is transmitted. The process of forming a single beam to solve the problem of the input transmission amount is represented by Equation 6 again for each sensor input.

As shown in Equation 6, multiplying and adding weights to all M sensor inputs partially subtracts M _i , (i = 1, ..., N) sensor inputs by multiplying weights and sums N partial sums. Is equal to the sum. Through this, the sensor input having the largest transmission amount can be distributed and processed at high speed without delay of transmission time for beam generation.

That is, in the method for forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion process according to the present invention and the apparatus for forming the multi-beam using the same, the transmission amount of the input which takes the most time in the time-domain beam formation is dispersed and It is intended to form a multiple beam. To this end, instead of allocating an operator for each beam to be formed, as in the time domain multi-beam forming apparatus according to the related art shown in FIG. 5, a large number of multiple beams are reduced by allocating an operator for each sensor input to reduce an input transmission amount of the operator. It can be formed at high speed.

6 is a block diagram illustrating an apparatus for forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing according to the present invention. According to FIG. 6, an apparatus for forming a multi-beam at high speed through a time domain dispersion process according to the present invention includes a plurality of sensors 610 for sampling a signal reflected or radiated from a target into a digital parallel signal, and the sampled digital parallel. A plurality of signal converters 620 for converting a signal into a digital serial signal, a plurality of calculators 630 for forming partial beams using the converted digital serial signal, and a partial beam formed from the plurality of calculators are added to form a final beam. The digital serial signal is distributed according to the same or predetermined input transmission amount according to the number of the plurality of arithmetic operators. The plurality of calculators may include a memory to which the converted digital serial signal is transmitted, and a plurality of beam formers to form a beam using the digital serial signal stored in the memory. In this case, the calculator used may be a PC or a DSP (Digital Signal Processor), and the present invention is not limited to a specific calculator because there is a function capable of receiving and calculating data.

7 is a flowchart of a method for forming multiple beams at high speed through time-domain dispersion processing according to the present invention. According to FIG. 7, in the method of forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing according to the present invention, a signal reflected or radiated from a target is input to a plurality of sensors, and then the analog signals input to the plurality of sensors are input. The digital parallel signal is sampled, and the sampled digital parallel signals are then matched to a plurality of (N) operators according to the number of operators (M _i (i = 1, ..., N)) at the same or predetermined input transmission amount. After dispersion, the distributed digital parallel signal is converted into a digital serial signal. Thereafter, the converted digital serial signals are respectively transferred to the memory of the calculator to form a partial beam. Y _{(j, i)} representing the partial beam formed by the above process is as follows.

In the i-th beam y _i [n], which is the actual final beam, the sum of the respective forming beams of the N operators in Equation 7 is performed as shown in Equation 8.

In this case, the partial beam forming step includes multiplying each of the plurality of digital serial signals transmitted to the memory by a weight, and forming a partial beam by adding the digital serial signals multiplied by the weight.

According to the method of forming a multi-beam at high speed through the time-domain dispersion processing according to the present invention and an apparatus for forming a multi-beam using the same, the sensor input having a large transmission amount is distributed for each operator and distributed in each operator. Partially forming the beam relative to the sensor input and then combining the partially formed beams to form the desired beam. At this time, the time delay according to the input transmission is determined according to the number of input sensors distributed, and if the same number of M / N is distributed to N calculators, the time delay is reduced to 1 / N so that beam formation can be performed at high speed. do. In general, since the computing unit has a higher internal computing capability than communication with the outside, distributing the sensor input as in the present invention reduces the time delay for transmitting the sensor input and increases the available time for beam forming in the computing unit. This has the advantage of increased ability. This makes it possible to form multiple beams using a small number of calculators. In addition, the actual calculator uses internal RAM or cash as memory for high-speed operation, which is expensive and does not have much space because of implementation problems. However, according to the present invention, since the sensor input data stored in the internal memory of each calculator is distributed and processed, the internal computing power is improved and high-speed processing is possible. This efficient use of internal memory is associated with price in selecting an operator, which can result in economic benefits in implementation.

As mentioned above, although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the preferred embodiment, the present invention is not limited thereto, and it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and applications can be made without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention. Accordingly, the true scope of protection of the present invention should be construed according to the following claims, and all technical ideas within the scope of the same should be construed as being included in the scope of the present invention.

110: sensor input unit 111: sensor input
112: sensor input 120: time delay unit
130: weight multiplication unit 140: adder
150: beam output 210: sensor input unit
211: sensor input 212: sensor input
220: signal converter 230: memory
240: beamformer 250: beam output
241: time delay unit 242: weight multiplier
243: adder unit 410: sensor input unit
411: sensor input 412: sensor input
420: signal converter 430: memory
440: beam former 441: beam former
442: beam former 450: beam output unit
451: beam output 452: beam output
510: sensor input unit 511: sensor input
512: sensor input 520: signal converter
530: calculator 531: memory
532 memory 533 beamformer
534: beam former 535: beam former
536: beam former 540: beam output unit
541 beam output 542 beam output
543: beam output 544: beam output
610: sensor input unit 611: sensor input
612: sensor input 613: sensor input
614: sensor input 620: signal conversion unit
621: signal converter 622: signal converter
630: calculator 631: memory
632: memory 633: partial beam former
634: partial beam former 635: partial beam former
636: partial beam forming machine 640: addition donor
641: adder 642: adder
643: adder 644: adder
650: beam output unit 651: beam output
652: beam output

Claims (6)

Multiple sensors for sampling the analog signal reflected or emitted from the target into a digital parallel signal,
A plurality of signal converters for converting the sampled digital parallel signals into digital serial signals;
A plurality of calculators for beamforming using the digital serial signal;
It consists of a summer to add the partial beams formed from a plurality of calculators to form a final beam,
And the digital serial signal is distributedly allocated in the same amount or in a predetermined amount of input transmission in accordance with the number of the plurality of calculators. The method of claim 1,
The plurality of calculators may be configured to include a memory to which converted digital serial signals are transmitted, and a plurality of beam formers to form beams using the digital serial signals stored in the memory. Apparatus for forming multiple beams. The method according to claim 1 or 2,
And the plurality of calculators are personal computers (PCs). The apparatus for forming multiple beams at high speed through time-domain dispersion processing. The method according to claim 1 or 2,
And the plurality of calculators are DSPs (Digital Signal Processors). Inputting a signal reflected or radiated from a target to a plurality of sensors,
Sampling the analog signals input to the plurality of sensors into digital parallel signals;
Distributing the sampled digital parallel signals in equal amounts or in predetermined input amounts according to a number of arithmetic operators;
Converting the distributed digital parallel signal into a digital serial signal;
Transmitting the converted digital serial signals to a memory of an operator to form a partial beam;
And summing the formed partial beams to form a final beam. The method of claim 5,
The partial beam forming step,
Multiplying each of the plurality of digital serial signals transmitted and stored by the weight with a weight;
Summing the digital serial signals multiplied by the weights to form a partial beam;
And forming partial beams by summing the partial beams of the formed multiple operators to form a final beam.

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