ACOUSTIC SYSTEM FOR DETECTING AND LOCATING LOW INTENSITY AND LOW FREQUENCY SOUND SOURCES AND RELATED LOCATING METHOD

摘要

The invention relates to an acoustic system for detecting and locating low intensity and low frequency sound sources in an investigation area and to a related locating method. The invention makes available an acoustic system which is effective in identifying survivors trapped under the rubble of buildings or similar structures following the occurrence of a catastrophic event, in which the presence and the position of such people is detected by the requests for help thereof. The acoustic system focuses on the low frequency components (less than 1000 Hz) of the human voice and comprises: a suite (1) of acoustic sensors (2) for detecting acoustic signals generated by the sound sources and for generating data representative of such acoustic signals; an electronic receiver block (20) for receiving and analyzing the data representative of the detected signals; - wireless communication means (15) for transmitting the data representative of the acoustic signals detected by the acoustic sensors to the electronic receiver block; - a processing unit (30) operatively associated with the electronic receiver block. Such a processing unit is configured to: execute a calibration of the acoustic sensors of the suite to temporally align each signal received from the acoustic sensors, and execute a digital beamforming to combine the data representative of the acoustic signals detected by the acoustic sensors and to create an acoustic image of the investigation area to locate the aforesaid low intensity and low frequency sound sources.