Deconvolved Conventional Beamforming Based on an Octagonal Uniform Planar Array

Conventional beamforming (CBF) is widely used in acoustic imaging but is limited by the physical array aperture, causing mainlobe broadening and high-level sidelobe that hinder the separation of adjacent targets. To enhance the spatial resolution capability, this paper proposes a two-dimensional (2D) deconvolved conventional beamforming (DCBF) framework using the Richardson-Lucy (R-L) algorithm for an octagonal uniform planar microphone array (OUPA). The method models the CBF power output as a 2D spatial convolution between the true source intensity and the array's point spread function (PSF). By iterations, the convolution is inverted to reconstruct high-resolution acoustic spectra. Both numerical simulations and experimental validation demonstrate that this DCBF algorithm narrows the mainlobe and suppresses sidelobe interference. It can resolve closely spaced sources that are indistinguishable by CBF, providing a high-resolution framework for spatial acoustic sensing.