Daily Image
28-08-2014
World largest Microphone phased array
| Submitter: | Ronald Halfwerk |
| Description: | Last Friday, 22th of August, Dutch company Sorama set a record when combining four of their 1024 microphone arrays to one large 4096-element array. The previous record of 1020 microphones, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was exceeded by a factor of four! The new record will be listed in the Guinness Book of Records. Sorama is using coherent sampling and beamforming technologies to create a sound camera. By using a large number of MEMS-based microphones, they are able to create images with resolutions high enough to localize and identify sources of audible noise. Visualizing sound waves around, and vibrations on a product helps to understand and improve the dynamic behaviour of a product (e.g. localizing and reducing sound vibrations in consumer electronics, results in quieter products). Another application is to monitor vibrations of engines, and to analyze the results of damping-measures to reduce the environmental noise from these machines. Just like ASTRON applies GPU cores in its new COBALT beamforming/correlator system, Sorama uses GPUs to implement their acoustic algorithms for beam-forming and near-field acoustic holography. During the Hannover Messe, where both Sorama and ASTRON were part of the Dutch High Tech pavilion, early discussions started on the feasibility of creating more spatially distributed microphone arrays. Although the sampling rate of microphone arrays differs significantly from those in radio telescopes like LOFAR, there is reason enough to believe that we could exchange know-how on clock distribution, coherent sampling and beamforming technologies. Congratulations to Sorama for its world record! |
| Copyright: | Foto (inserts): (c) Sorama (c) ASTRON |
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