Amplitude, phase, location, and orientation calibration of an acoustic vector sensor array. Part II. Experiments.

Abstract

An acoustic vector sensor array consists of multiple sound pressure microphones and particle velocity sensors. A pressure microphone usually has an omni-directional response, yet a particle velocity sensor is directional and usually has a response pattern as a figure of number eight. Currently, acoustic vector sensor arrays are under investigation for far field source localization and visualization. One of the major practical issues in these applications, however, is to determine the accurate position, orientation, and complex (phase and amplitude) sensitivity of each sensor within the array. In this study, a calibration method, which is discussed in Part I, is verified with experiments. The method determines all the crucial parameters based on a limited number of measurements with a reference sensor and multiple sound sources located at known locations. The calibration method shows also to be robust to mistakenly switched cable connections. The experiments are performed in different acoustic environments including an anechoic room. The results will be presented in this paper.