• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.777-783
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• 2022

Even though several deep learning-based methods have been applied in the field of acoustic source localization, the previous works have only been conducted using the two-dimensional representation of the beamforming maps, particularly with the planar array system. While the acoustic sources are more required to be localized in a spherical microphone array system considering that we live and hear in the 3D world, the conventional 2D equirectangular map of the spherical beamforming map is highly vulnerable to the distortion that occurs when the 3D map is projected to the 2D space. In this study, a 3D deep learning approach is proposed to fulfill accurate source localization via distortion-free 3D representation. A target function is first proposed to obtain 3D source distribution maps that can represent multiple sources' positional and strength information. While the proposed target map expands the source localization task into a point-wise prediction task, a PointNet-based deep neural network is developed to precisely estimate the multiple sources' positions and strength information. While the proposed model's localization performance is evaluated, it is shown that the proposed method can achieve improved localization results from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.490-495
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• 2009

An approach to 3D visualization of multiple sound sources has been developed with the application of a moving array technique. Frequency-domain beamforming algorithm is used to generate a beam power map and the sound source is modeled as a point source. When a conventional delay and sum beamformer is used, it is considered that 2D distribution of sensors leads to have deficiency in spatial resolution along a measurement distance. The goal of moving an array in this study is to form 3D array aperture surrounding multiple sound sources so that the improved spatial resolution in a virtual space can be expected. Numerical simulation was made to examine source localization capabilities of various shapes of array. The 3D beam power maps of hemispherical and spherical distribution are found to have very sharp resolution. For experiments, two sound sources were placed in the middle of defined virtual space and arc-shaped line array was rotated around the sources. It is observed that spherical array show the most accurate determination of multiple sources' positions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.907-914
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• 2009

An approach to 3D visualization of multiple sound sources has been developed with the application of a moving array technique. Frequency domain beamforming algorithm is used to generate a beam power map and the sound source is modeled as a point source. When a conventional delay and sum beamformer is used, it is considered that 2D distribution of sensors leads to have deficiency in spatial resolution along a measurement distance. The goal of moving an array in this study is to form 3D array aperture surrounding multiple sound sources so that the improved spatial resolution in a virtual space can be expected. Numerical simulation was made to examine source localization capabilities of various shapes of array. The 3D beam power maps of hemispherical and spherical distribution are found to have very sharp resolution. For experiments, several sound sources were placed in the middle of defined virtual space and arc-shaped line array was rotated around the sources. It is observed that spherical array shows the most accurate determination of multiple sources' positions.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.391-401
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• 2004

3D imaging systems using 2D phased arrays have a large number of active channels, compelling to use a very expensive and bulky beamforming hardware, and suffer from low volume rate because, in principle, at least one ultrasound transmit-receive event is necessary to construct each scanline. A high speed 3D imaging method using a cross array proposed previously to solve the above limitations can implement fast scanning and dynamic focusing in the lateral direction but suffer from low resolution except at the fixed transmit focusing along the elevational direction. To overcome these limitations, we propose a new real-time volumetric imaging method using a cross array based on the synthetic aperture technique. In the proposed method, ultrasound wave is transmitted successively using each elements of an 1D transmit array transducer, one at a time, which is placed along the elevational direction and for each firing, the returning pulse echoes are received using all elements of an 1D receive array transducer placed along the lateral direction. On receive, by employing the conventional dynamic focusing and synthetic aperture method along lateral and elevational directions, respectively, ultrasound waves can be focused effectively at all imaging points. In addition, in the proposed method, a volume of interest consisting of any required number of slice images, can be constructed with the same number of transmit-receive steps as the total number of transmit array elements. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method can provide the same and greatly improved resolutions in the lateral and elevational directions, respectively, compared with the 3D imaging method using a cross array based on the conventional fixed focusing. In the accompanying paper, we will also propose a new real-time 3D imaging method using a cross array for improving transmit power and elevational spatial resolution, which uses linear wave fronts on transmit.