High-fidelity sonic boom measurements using weather-robust measurement equipment

Abstract

One challenge with outdoor sonic boom measurements is making high-fidelity recordings during adverse weather conditions. This paper describes the deployment of a weather-robust measurement system as part of Brigham Young University’s (BYU) participation in the NASA Quiet Supersonic Flights 2018 (QSF18) test in Galveston, TX. BYU made measurements at four different stations across Galveston Island, representing different ambient environments: Scholes airport, a cemetery, a city park near a busy street, and a downtown Post Office parking lot. At each station, multiple measurements were made simultaneously using different data acquisition hardware and microphone types and configurations. The nearly collocated recordings allowed for the comparison of different measurement approaches in terms of practicality, instrumentation noise floor, measurement bandwidth, and wind noise reduction.