An Iterative Fast Microphone Array Design Method Employing Equilateral Triangular Subarrays.

Area of Science:

• Acoustics
• Signal Processing
• Array Design

Background:

• Microphone array design for industrial acoustic imaging faces challenges with frequency-dependent performance, high computational costs, and hardware expenses.
• Existing optimization methods often require simultaneous design of all elements, leading to lengthy processes and inflexibility in element count.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a fast and iterative method for microphone array design that overcomes the limitations of current approaches.
• To enable frequency-specific performance optimization and direct control over the number of array elements.

Main Methods:

• Proposes an iterative design method utilizing equilateral triangular subarrays as fundamental units.
• Employs a genetic algorithm to optimize the placement of newly added subarrays for a target frequency in each iteration.
• Leverages rotational symmetry and array point spread function characteristics to reduce computational complexity.

Main Results:

• Achieves significant reduction in optimization variables and computational domain for efficient array design.
• Demonstrates frequency-specific performance optimization with direct control over element count.
• Designed arrays show improved main lobe width and sidelobe level performance near target frequencies compared to classical configurations.

Conclusions:

• The proposed iterative method offers a practical balance between acoustic imaging performance and hardware cost.
• This approach provides a flexible and computationally efficient solution for industrial microphone array design.