Array gain of fourth-order cumulants beamforming under typical probability density background

The fourth-order cumulant of zero mean Gaussian distribution noise always equals to zero theoretically. In practice the probability density of noise and reverberation is the key problem to performance of the fourth-order cumulant beamforming technique. In this paper, the array gain functions of the fourth-order cumulant beamforming are deducted considering the instantaneous amplitude distribution of the ambient sea noise and bottom reverberation respectively. And the relationships are determined between array gain and the factors including the number of the array elements, the fourth-order and second-order statistical properties of the noise and reverberation, and the input signal-to-noise ratio. It is also verified that there is a critical signal-to-interference ratio and the fourth-order cumulant beamforming can obtain higher gain and resolution than the conventional beamforming method when the ratio is larger than it. The results of experiment data processing demonstrate that the gain and the resolution of the fourth-order cumulant beamforming coincide with the theoretic.