By using the cross‐sensor field, a beam pattern (for a one‐wave, no‐noise acoustic field) can be generated for a sparse array which is the same as for a filled array. When real‐world effects, such as noise and multiwave acoustic fields, are considered, the performance of the sparse array degrades more than the preformance of the filled array. However, by time averaging the cross‐sensor field the performance of the sparse array is noticeably improved.