Visualization of multiple array acoustic source localization

Abstract

Transient acoustic events such as gunfire, rocket launches, and explosions can be located using triangulation with multiple lines-of-bearing (LOBs) generated by distributed acoustic microphone arrays. The Army has fielded diverse sound localization and ranging systems that work well in open field environments, but suffer reduced performance in urban environments where echoes, multipath, diffraction, and blockages modify both the signatures and the propagation path. This demonstration will use light projected through a water basin to a screen to show traveling waves (ripple diffraction patterns) from transient events and how those wavefronts pass differently across the distributed array locations. The observers will gain an understanding of how multiple microphone elements in a small cluster of microphones (an array) can derive time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) estimates to create array LOBs, as well as an introduction to triangulation through multiple distributed array LOBs. Objects simulating walls and buildings will be placed in the basin to demonstrate how complex waveforms and propagation paths can decrease the accuracy of acoustic localization systems.