Sonar system and method

A sonar system for transmitting sonar beams through a body of water with a desired beam width in a far-field comprising:

• a transducer comprising a linear array of transducer elements, the transducer being driven by element driving signals to project a sonar beam with the desired beam width;
• and
• a control unit operatively connected to the transducer, the control unit comprising a transmission module that comprises a waveform generator that is configured to generate a single waveform signal, and which is configured to generate the element driving signals from the single waveform signal based on a set of drive pattern weightings associated with the desired beam width to project from the transducer, and the set of drive pattern weightings being an ordered set or sequence of real numbers, one drive pattern weighting for each transducer element, and where an order of the set of drive pattern weightings corresponds to an order of the transducer elements in the linear array, and wherein each of the element driving signals generated for a respective transducer element of the linear array of transducer elements represents a copy of the single waveform signal modified by an applied respective drive pattern weighting of the set of drive pattern weightings, and
• wherein each drive pattern weighting of the set of drive pattern weightings comprises an amplitude component and a polarity component and wherein the polarity component of each drive pattern weighting of the set of drive pattern weightings is a binary selection between positive or negative.

A sonar system for receiving sonar beams through a body of water with a desired beam width in a far-field comprising:

• a transducer comprising a linear array of transducer elements, the transducer generating element receive signals in response to a received sonar signal or sonic wave;
• and
• a control unit operatively connected to the transducer, the control unit comprising a reception module that is configured to apply a set of receive pattern weightings to the element receive signals to generate weighted element receive signals, the set of receive pattern weightings associated with the desired beam width to be detected or sensed by the sonar system, and which generates a single output signal based on a sum of the weighted element receive signals, the single output signal representing the desired sonar beam to be received, and the set of receive pattern weightings being an ordered set or sequence of real numbers, one receive pattern weighting for each transducer element, and where an order of the set of receive pattern weightings corresponds to an order of the transducer elements in the linear array, and
• wherein each receive pattern weighting of the set of receive pattern weightings comprises an amplitude component and a polarity component, and wherein the polarity component of each receive pattern weighting of the set of receive pattern weightings is a binary selection between positive or negative.