I-Corps: Real Time Acoustic Beamforming for Directed Listening

这个I-Corp项目研究传感器系统，通过实时波束形成增强嘈杂环境中的通信。该研究将确定一个包含多个麦克风、现场可编程门阵列和相关电子设备的系统的潜力，以实现实时波束成形，以提高收听声源的信噪比。该系统最好被描述为“声学双筒望远镜”，因为它使听者能够听到来自远离听者的柔和声音或嘈杂环境中的正常声音。提出的创新解决了在嘈杂环境中引导倾听注意力和放大安静源的问题。它克服了现有声学波束形成产品的缺点，包括显著的计算延迟，只显示声源的方向（不提供用于收听的波束形成信号），以及缺乏对大量麦克风的可扩展性。该原型系统具有可扩展性，可实时进行波束形成；因此，它具有显著提高信噪比的能力，并为收听提供波束形成信号100khz数据速率。该技术以多种产品的形式产生潜在影响，例如，用于飞行员、乘客和嘈杂设备/车辆操作员的收听设备，以增强嘈杂环境中的收听注意力，以及用于从安全距离进行基于音频的监视的设备。拟议的技术也可以扩展到医疗和结构超声成像设备，尽管现有的原型只针对声学波束形成。将实时波束成形架构扩展到超声成像（医学或结构成像），提供了增强图像的潜力，这是现有最安全的非侵入性成像方法之一。

This I-Corp project investigates sensor systems for enhancing communication in noisy environments through real-time beamforming. The investigation will determine potential of a system incorporating multiple microphones, a field programmable gate array, and associated electronics to implement beamforming in real time to enhance signal-to-noise ratio in listening to acoustic sources. The system is best described as "acoustic binoculars" as it enables the listener to hear soft sounds originating away from the listener or normal sounds in noisy environments. The proposed innovation addresses the problem of directing listening attention in noisy environments and in amplifying quiet sources. It overcomes shortcomings in existing products for acoustic beamforming, which include significant computational delay, presentation of only the direction of an acoustic source (without providing the beamformed signal for listening), and lack of scalability to large numbers of microphones. The prototype system is scalable and performs beamforming in real time; hence, it has the capacity to increase signal-to-noise ratio dramatically as well as to provide the beamformed signal 100 kHz data rates for listening. The technology has potential impact in the form of a number of products, e.g., listening devices for pilots, passengers, and operators of noisy equipment/vehicles to enhance listening attention in noisy environments and devices for audio-based surveillance from a safe distance. The proposed technology may also extend to medical and structural ultrasonic imaging devices, although existing prototypes have been directed only towards acoustic beamforming. Extending the real-time beamforming architecture to ultrasonic imaging (medical or structure imaging), provides the potential to enhance images derived from what is one of the safest non-invasive imaging methods in existence.