In the last decades, multi-acoustic sensor systems have done well because of their possible uses in different fields. These systems, also called acoustic antennas, consist of a set of N microphones distributed in a certain way in space, following linear, planar, or three-dimensional geometries. Acoustic antennas have a wide range of applications in different fields. In automotive, they are used to highlight noise propagation path; in the multimedia sector, these sensors allow to localize a speaker without portable microphones. The civil safety and military fields benefit from these systems as well: gunshot detection in city areas [1], fire prevention in wooded zones [2, 3], and soldier protection from enemy attacks [4] are just some of their possible applications. Even in the aerospace field, there are interesting applications: among others, one recalls the monitoring of air traffic zones. This application was investigated by the authors of the GUARDIAN National Project, aimed at developing innovative acoustic antennas (see Fig. 1a) able to detect approaching aircrafts and to track their acoustic signature [5]. In this paper, starting from their past experience in sensor realization, characterization, and calibration [6-12], the authors propose a calibration procedure for acoustic antennas in order to improve the uncertainty in the estimation of acoustic source position.
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