An acoustic transponder provides information related to the transponder when the transponder is receiving an acoustic interrogating signal. The transponder includes a power supply, an electronic circuit connected to the power supply, and one or more transducers receiving and emitting the acoustic signal. The electronic circuit includes a sequence generator. The transponder further includes an amplification and modulation unit, an extraction filter, and a suppression filter. The extraction filter is adapted to extract the received acoustic interrogating signal and suppress other signals prior to being input to the amplification and modulation unit which are configured to modulate the received acoustic signal according to a sequence generated by the sequence generator and to amplify the modulated signal. The suppression filter is adapted to suppress the received acoustic interrogating signal from the amplified and modulated signal. The amplified modulated signal is transferred through the one or more transducers of the transponder and/or through other transducer(s).

An acoustic transponder provides information related to the transponder when the transponder is receiving an acoustic interrogating signal. The transponder includes a power supply, an electronic circuit connected to the power supply, and one or more transducers receiving and emitting the acoustic signal. The electronic circuit includes a sequence generator. The transponder further includes an amplification and modulation unit, an extraction filter, and a suppression filter. The extraction filter is adapted to extract the received acoustic interrogating signal and suppress other signals prior to being input to the amplification and modulation unit which are configured to modulate the received acoustic signal according to a sequence generated by the sequence generator and to amplify the modulated signal. The suppression filter is adapted to suppress the received acoustic interrogating signal from the amplified and modulated signal. The amplified modulated signal is transferred through the one or more transducers of the transponder and/or through other transducer(s).

Systems and methods for operating radar systems. The methods comprise, by a processor: receiving point cloud information generated by at least one radar device and a spatial description for an object; generating a plurality of point cloud segments by grouping data points of the point cloud information based on the spatial description; arranging the point cloud segments in a temporal order to define a radar tentative track; performing dealiasing operations using the radar tentative track to generate tracker initialization information; and using the tracker initialization information to generate a track for the object.

A scanner transmits and receives ultrasonic waves at a specified pulse repetition frequency (PRF). A storage stores received signals acquired through the transmission and reception. A calculator generates a Doppler spectrum image by executing frequency analysis on the received signals. A display displays the Doppler spectrum image. When a desired Doppler velocity range for the displayed Doppler spectrum image is inputted, a processor reads out the received signals from the storage, and executes a resampling process on the read-out received signals at a sampling frequency corresponding to the desired Doppler velocity range. The calculator generates a new Doppler spectrum image by executing frequency analysis corresponding to the desired Doppler velocity range on the received signals having been subjected to the resampling process by the processor. The display displays the new Doppler spectrum image.

Systems and methods for operating radar systems. The methods comprise, by a processor: receiving point cloud information generated by at least one radar device and a spatial description for an object; generating a plurality of point cloud segments by grouping data points of the point cloud information based on the spatial description; arranging the point cloud segments in a temporal order to define a radar tentative track; performing dealiasing operations using the radar tentative track to generate tracker initialization information; and using the tracker initialization information to generate a track for the object.

A secondary echo and a primary echo subjected to topographic echo processing are compared with each other. When there is a topographic echo in the primary echo or the secondary echo determined as a strong echo, an echo resulting from removal of the topographic echo is defined as a strong-topographic-echo-removed reception signal. Electric power of the topographic echo in the secondary echo or the primary echo determined as a weak echo and the strong-topographic-echo-removed reception signal are defined as weak echo parameters. Electric power of the weak echo estimated from a reception signal in a weak echo region resulting from phase correction of a reception signal resulting from removal of a frequency component of the strong echo from the strong-topographic-echo-removed reception signal representing the weak echo parameter, a spectral width of the weak echo representing the weak echo parameter, and a Doppler velocity of the weak echo are provided as spectral parameters.

Systems and methods for enhanced blazed array and/or phased array sonar systems are described herein. In one aspect, a sonar system includes a blazed sonar array and/or phased sonar array having: at least one transducer connected to a housing of a vehicle; a transmitter, in electrical communication with the at least one transducer, causing the transducer to emit at least one sonar signal, the sonar signal having a Doppler sharpening pulse length and the vehicle having a Doppler sharpening velocity; a receiver, in electrical communication with the at least one transducer, for receiving signals from at least one transducer, the received signals corresponding to acoustic signals captured by the at least one transducer; and a processor, in electrical communication with the transmitter and receiver, arranged to control the Doppler sharpening pulse length and generate a 3D image based on the received signals, Doppler sharpening pulse length, and Doppler sharpening velocity.

A secondary echo and a primary echo subjected to topographic echo processing are compared with each other. When there is a topographic echo in the primary echo or the secondary echo determined as a strong echo, an echo resulting from removal of the topographic echo is defined as a strong-topographic-echo-removed reception signal. Electric power of the topographic echo in the secondary echo or the primary echo determined as a weak echo and the strong-topographic-echo-removed reception signal are defined as weak echo parameters. Electric power of the weak echo estimated from a reception signal in a weak echo region resulting from phase correction of a reception signal resulting from removal of a frequency component of the strong echo from the strong-topographic-echo-removed reception signal representing the weak echo parameter, a spectral width of the weak echo representing the weak echo parameter, and a Doppler velocity of the weak echo are provided as spectral parameters.

A sonar system and method for measuring relative velocity between a transducer and a scattering surface or volume is disclosed. The system utilizes phased array or piston transducers that project acoustic beams in different directions. Each projection consists of multiple sub-waveforms of different center frequencies that are either frequency steered into different directions such that the acoustic beams ensonify different scatterers or sufficiently separated in frequency to obtain independent estimates of velocity. Each received return signal is used to estimate an independent relative velocity between the transducer and scatterers, and the estimated velocities are averaged to reduce the single-ping standard deviation of the velocity error. Different lags may be used in the different sub-waveforms, wherein shorter lags are used to ambiguity resolve longer lags such that the system ambiguity velocity is sufficiently high, and the single-ping variance decreases below what would be possible when only using a short lag.

The present invention is directed to an ultrasound imaging system and method for Doppler processing of data. The ultrasonic imaging system efficiently addresses the data computational and processing needs of Doppler processing. In a preferred embodiment, the ultrasound imaging system of the present invention includes a processing module; and memory operable coupled to the processing module, wherein the memory stores operational instructions that cause the processing module to map serial data to vector representation, calculate an auto-correlation function of the data, calculate a phase shift of the auto-correlation function to generate a monotonic function covering all values of the phase shift corresponding to a range of Doppler velocities and display the resultant images, for example, as color images.