Preprocessor and adaptive beamformer for active signals of arbitrary waveform

A signal processor for processing an echo signal received by an array of receiving elements from a distant target ensonified or irradiated by a transmitted signal, comprising:

• a receiver operably coupled to said array of receiving elements for receiving element outputs;
• a digitizer operably coupled to said receiver for generating a digitized time series from each of said element outputs;
• a block generator operably coupled to said digitizer for forming a series of uncompressed time blocks from said digitized time series within a total receiving time of said element outputs, wherein said uncompressed time blocks contain sufficient data to correlate and synchronize time segments from said digitized time series with a replica of said transmitted signal;
• a replica correlator operably coupled to said block generator for correlating each of said uncompressed time blocks with said replica of said transmitted signal to form a series of correlated time blocks;
• a time shifter operably coupled to said replica correlator for forming a series of synchronized groups from said series of correlated time blocks, wherein said synchronized groups are synchronized to within one sample period for each of a plurality of steering directions;
• and
• a time window generator operably coupled to said time shifter for forming a contiguous series of time windows from said series of synchronized groups, wherein each of said time windows extends from an initial time to a final time appropriate to an arrival time and a duration of said echo signal.