An analytical filter design method for guided wave phased arrays

This paper presents an analytical method for designing a spatial filter that processes the data from an array of two-dimensional guided wave transducers. An inverse problem is defined where the spatial filter coefficients are determined in such a way that a prescribed beam shape, i.e., a desired array output is best approximated in the least-squares sense. Taking advantage of the 2π-periodicity of the generated wave field, Fourier-series representation is used to derive closed-form expressions for the constituting matrix elements. Special cases in which the desired array output is an ideal delta function and a gate function are considered in a more explicit way. Numerical simulations are performed to examine the performance of the filters designed by the proposed method. It is shown that the proposed filters can significantly improve the beam quality in general. Most notable is that the proposed method does not compromise between the main lobe width and the sidelobe levels; i.e. a narrow main lobe and low sidelobes are simultaneously achieved. It is also shown that the proposed filter can compensate the effects of nonuniform directivity and sensitivity of array elements by explicitly taking these into account in the formulation. From an example of detecting two separate targets, how much the angular resolution can be improved as compared to the conventional delay-and-sum filter is quantitatively illustrated. Lamb wave based imaging of localized defects in an elastic plate using a circular array is also presented as an example of practical applications.