Patent ID: 7379553
Filing Date: 2008-05-27
Classification: G01H,G01S,H04R

Abstract:
1. A sound-source search system comprising: a spherical, semi-spherical or polyhedral baffle; a plurality of microphones arranged on the surface of said baffle for picking up sound in all directions, wherein a built-in main unit such as a pre-amp for said microphones that is connected to the main unit on an inside of said baffle is installed to suppress disturbances in the sound field around said baffle and to accurately pick up sound from the sound source; an amp that amplifies analog signals, which are electrical signals for the sounds in all directions that were picked up by said plurality of microphones; an A/D converter that converts the analog signals that were amplified by said amp to digital signals; an arithmetic-processing apparatus that performs arithmetic processing on the digital signals that were convened by said A/D converter, and analyzes the direction from which the sound from the sound source comes, and/or estimates the intensity of the sound from the sound source; a memory apparatus for storing the results of the arithmetic processing by said arithmetic-processing apparatus; a display apparatus that displays as a contour display in color the intensity distribution of the sound from the sound source based on the results of the arithmetic processing by said arithmetic-processing apparatus; and an input apparatus for entering the distance to the sound source, or sound sources generated at a plurality of sites on boundary surfaces; and wherein said arithmetic-processing apparatus, by arithmetic processing, finds the amplitude characteristics and phase characteristics of each of the acoustic signals picked up by said plurality of microphones, after which it combines that signal information with analysis information for the sound field around said baffle, and together with performing arithmetic processing to emphasize the sound coming from a specific direction for all directions, and identifying the direction from which the sound comes, by adding the distance to the sound source to the conventional frequency domain beam forming method, it estimates accurately the intensity of the sound from the sound source or sound sources generated at one or more of sites on boundary surfaces in all directions, so regardless of whether or not the space is small, based on the arithmetic-processing results and said distance to the sound source and sound sources generated at a plurality of sites on boundary surfaces input beforehand from said input apparatus at the same time.