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Overcomes limitations of ground-based acoustic signal acquisition of flight vehicles by minimizing the effect of ground reflections.
About
Technology David Alvord and Alessio Medda from GTRI at Georgia Tech have developed an airborne acoustic testbed that consists of a self-contained acoustic sensing payload installed on an Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV). The acoustic payload can be integrated with any type of UAV and used with additional data streams such as EO/IR or telemetry data. Using the developed signal processing suite, noise sources including self-generated UAV noise, wind, or environmental noise can be removed from the acquired acoustic signal of interest. Future capabilities of the AATB will include live voice acquisition, source localization, or acoustic fingerprinting. Applications This invention creates an “ear-in-the-sky” capability, being able to fly an UAV to a designated position and listen. Further possible applications include acquiring acoustic characterization data for a specified vehicle from in flight, acquiring ground based speech, Intel/Surveillance/Recon (ISR) capabilities, detecting and localizing where a sound source of interest is located, detecting search and rescue targets, and increasing situational awareness and information.