Resolution Measured as Separability Compared to Full Width Half Maximum for Adaptive Beamformers

Spatial resolution is defined as a system's ability to separate targets using some kind of criterion, such as the Rayleigh criterion. However, in practice, lateral resolution is often evaluated by measuring the Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM at -6dB) of the point spread function (PSF). We hypothesize that FWHM overestimates the system resolution for some adaptive beamformers, compared to using the Rayleigh criterion. Simulation results seem to confirm this hypothesis.