Research of the Adaptive Beamformer Based on the Frequency Energy Normalization

An algorithm of broadband minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) based on the frequency energy normalization is proposed. First, every narrowband frequency component of the broadband signal is normalized by the total narrowband energy of all array elements, and the narrowband power is calculated by MVDR. Finally, final spatial energy spectrum can be obtained by averaging or summing all results of every narrowband frequency bin. Any prior-information about the noise or the signal is unnecessary for the proposed method in this paper. The processing gain of the proposed method compared to the conventional broadband MVDR can be obtained as long as the amplitude fluctuation of the array noise frequency spectrum is severer than that of the target signal. The validity of the method is validated by the optimal signal detection theory. Simulation and real data are used to validate the performance of the method. Analysis results show that about 4dB processing gain compared to the general broadband MVDR can be reached by the proposed method.