Patent Document ID: 5517537
Application ID: 08292320
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. An apparatus for detecting anomalies within a monitored volume, comprising: a set of transducers coupled to a respective plurality of localized portions of said monitored volume, each of said transducers outputting a respective analog electrical signal having a low-frequency component which is a function of the vibrational displacement of said localized portions of said monitored volume; means for sampling the analog electrical signals output from a subset of said set of transducers; means for converting said sampled analog electrical signals into a data array of respective digital electrical signals; beamforming means for processing said data array to obtain a three-dimensional noise field in a volume of interest, said noise field consisting of the absolute noise intensity at each nodal point of a mesh located within said volume of interest; and decision means for processing said noise field to determine a likelihood that an anomaly is present within said volume of interest.