Active Electronically Scanned Sonar — Engineering Journey

In 2024, I completed my undergraduate thesis on an Active Electronically Scanned Array Sonar system, a project that took approximately 1.5 years of research, design, development and experimentation.

What started as an idea inspired by phased-array radar technology (AESA Radar especially) gradually evolved into a working experimental prototype involving 40kHz ultrasonic transducers, custom analog electronics, signal generation, PCB design, mathematical modelling and embedded systems.

Although the final prototype was far from a fully developed sonar system, it provided valuable hands on experience. It introduced me to several engineering challenges that I am still interested in exploring today.

Looking back at the project I can now identify numerous design decisions, limitations, and potential improvements that I would approach differently with the knowledge and experience I have gained and improved technology tools like AI since then.

Rather than letting this project remain just an undergraduate thesis, I have decided to revisit it, document its development and gradually take it to the next level.

This blog series will cover the original design process, technical challanges, experiments, lessons learned and my plans for developing a more modular and spohisticated ultrasonic phased-array platform with a proper versioning by using git :D.

Also I have some adventages right now like having a regular salary and the experience I’ve gained. When I was a student my budget was very tight and I had to be extremely careful with how I spent my money :(. Things are a little different right now. I have more financial freedom to experiment, try new components, being able to invest in equipment that is a notch more expensive.

I am my own angel investor right now 😀

Chapter	Phase	Content	Published	Planned
01	How I Built My First Phased-Array Sonar	The story begind the project, the 1.5 year development journey, initial objectives, challanges and results
02	Designin an Ultrasonic Transducer Array	8 TX / 5 RX architecture, transducer spacing, wavelength calculations, array geometry and grating lobes
03	40 kHz Signal Generation and Modulation	SG3525-based signal generation, ESP32 control, transmitter electronics and references to previous blog posts
04	Analog Receiver Circuit Design	TL084 operational amplifiers, signal amplification, filtering, clipping and challenges encountered during development
05	PCB Design and Manufacturing	Altium Designer or KiCAD, hierarchical schematic design, PCB layout, fabrication, assembly and troubleshooting
06	Beam Steering: Theory vs Experiments	Phase shifting, engineering review, architectural limitations, design mistakes, lessons learned and potential improvements
07	What I Would Do Differently Today	A retrospective engineering review, architectural limitations, design amistakes, lessons learned and potential improvements
08	Sonar V2: Development Roadmap	A modula system architecture, sychronized signal generation, redesigned transmitter drivers, improved receiver electronics and future development plans

Tools, Software & Resources

Throughout this project, I used several tools for circuit design, simulation, mathematical modelling, PCB development and documentation.

Some of these tools were used during my original undergraduate project, while other are being considered for future development. I’ll keep this section updated as the project evolves.

Original Project (2023-2024)

Category	Software & Tools
Schematic & PCB Design	Altium Designer, KiCad
Circuit Simulation	LTSpice, QSpice
Mathematical Modelling & Visualization	Python, NumPy, Matplotlib
Embedded Development	Arduino IDE, ESP32
Technical Documentation	Component Datasheets, application notes, academic papers and technical books

Future Development (Sonar V2)

Category	Software & Tools
Schematic & PCB Design	Altium Designer, KiCad
Circuit Simulation	LTSpice, QSpice, Qucs-S (under consideration)
Mathematical Modelling & Visualization	Python, NumPy, Matplotlib, Wolfram Mathematica (under consideration)
Embedded Development	Arduino IDE, ESP32
Technical Documentation	Component Datasheets, application notes, academic papers and technical books
Version Control	Git
Research & Reference Management	Zotero (planned)

As I revisit the project, I’ll also share the technical references and resources that helped me understand different concepts and make design decisions.

What’s Next?

The first part of this series will focus on the origins of the project, the motivation behind it, and the journey from initial concept to experimental prototype.

As the series progresses, I will dive deeper into the technical aspects of the original system while also sharing new ideas, design considerations and experimental developments.

My goal is not simply to rebuild the original prototype with better components, but to approach the entire system with a more structured, modular and measurement-driven engineering methodology.

I also intend to document unsuccessful experiments, unexpected results and changes in design decisions along the way. After all, understanding why something does not work is often just as valuable as getting it to work.

This page will serve as the central index for the series and will be updated with lins as new articles are published.

Thanks for following along on my engineering journey!

---

Last updated: October 2026

~ Kemal Karagöz