Synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) processing system with multi-aspect imaging for acoustic identification

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by processing circuitry of a synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) processing system for acoustic identification and multi-aspect imaging, the processing circuitry configured to:

• perform a first instance of stripmap processing on raw SAS data to generate an initial image;
• identify a region of interest within the initial image;
• perform a second instance of stripmap processing on the raw SAS data to generate higher-resolution SAS data of at least the region of interest, the second instance of stripmap processing comprises performing beamforming on the higher-resolution SAS data with a full aperture to produce a closest point of approach (CPA) image with an aspect that is orthogonal to an azimuthal path;
• and
• perform multi-aspect processing on the raw SAS data to generate multiple images of the region of interest, the multi-aspect processing comprising performing beamforming on the higher-resolution SAS data with a series of overlapping sub-apertures to generate the multiple images of the region of interest,
• wherein each of the multiple images are generated to present the region of interest with a different aspect and in a different time window.

A method for acoustic identification and multi-aspect imaging performed by processing circuitry of a synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) processing system, the method comprising:

• performing a first instance of stripmap processing on raw SAS data to generate an initial image;
• identifying a region of interest within the initial image;
• performing a second instance of stripmap processing on the raw SAS data to generate higher-resolution SAS data of at least the region of interest, the second instance of stripmap processing comprises performing beamforming on the higher-resolution SAS data with a full aperture to produce a closest point of approach (CPA) image with an aspect that is orthogonal to an azimuthal path;
• and
• performing multi-aspect processing on the raw SAS data to generate multiple images of the region of interest, the multi-aspect processing comprising performing beamforming on the higher-resolution SAS data with a series of overlapping sub-apertures to generate the multiple images of the region of interest,
• wherein each of the multiple images are generated to present the region of interest with a different aspect and in a different time window.