Estimation of the location of a farfield acoustic source

A backward integration method for estimating the location of a source of sound waves in the atmosphere is presented. This geometric acoustics method is based upon the analysis of microphone array measurements to determine the incoming ray direction in three dimensions. The equations governing the propagation of the ray are then integrated backward in time. The sound source lies somewhere along the calculated ray path. The intersection of such loci from more than one array would provide an estimate of the source location. The method appears to be very rapid to implement and, assuming the time delays to be accurately measured, limited in accuracy only by the timeliness of the input sound speed and velocity profiles in the atmosphere.