Room-acoustic energy decay analysis and acoustic landmine detection within Bayesian framework

Abstract

Model-based signal processing has been applied in sound energy decay analysis in enclosures for estimation of reverberation times [N. Xiang, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 98, 2112–2121 (1995)] and estimation of diverse decay times to quantify sound energy decay in coupled spaces. Recent works using Bayesian approaches have demonstrated success in this application [Xiang et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 1415–1424 (2001); 113, 2685–2697 (2003); 117, 3705–3715 (2005)]. Similar approaches have also been applied in acoustic landmine detection [Xiang & Sabatier, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 1333–1341 (2003)] for target detection and target localization. Respective models have been developed for each application in order to apply model-based Bayesian approaches in two different acoustical regimes. Using experimentally measured field data, this paper demonstrates an example of data analysis solutions developed for the room-acoustics application which can also be applied to another physical regime: acoustic landmine detection.