The VLAA: a very large acoustic array

Steve Cerwin; Julie Barnes

doi:10.1117/12.606894

20 May 2005 The VLAA: a very large acoustic array

Steve Cerwin, Julie Barnes

Proceedings Volume 5778, Sensors, and Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) Technologies for Homeland Security and Homeland Defense IV; (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.606894
Event: Defense and Security, 2005, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

A very large acoustic microphone array is described for use in the audio frequency band from 300 to 3000 Hz. The array used constant aperture processing to provide 10 wavelengths of aperture over the entire band, resulting in a narrow but constant beamwidth for all frequencies. The array was electronically steerable in azimuth over a +/- 80-degree range with no grating lobes. Several different embodiments have been constructed, and one design featured steerability in both the elevation and azimuth planes. This array used vertical subarrays at each horizontal array station that were pre-steered in elevation using a novel analog delay-and-sum beamformer. Signal processing was accomplished using a desktop PC. The large number of microphones used to construct the arrays demonstrated exceptional wind noise averaging in outdoor conditions. Array details, processing methodology, and test results are presented.

Citation Download Citation

Steve Cerwin and Julie Barnes "The VLAA: a very large acoustic array", Proc. SPIE 5778, Sensors, and Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) Technologies for Homeland Security and Homeland Defense IV, (20 May 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.606894

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