Improving the resolution of three-dimensional acoustic imaging with planar phased arrays

This paper examines and compares two methods of improving the quality of three-dimensional beamforming with phased microphone arrays. The intended application is the detection of aerodynamic noise sources on wind turbines. Both methods employ Fourier based deconvolution. The first method involves a transformation of coordinates that tends to make the response to a point source, the point spread function, more shift invariant.

The result is a significant improvement in sound source imaging in the transformed coordinate system. However, the inverse transformation to Cartesian coordinates introduces range dependent resolution limitations because of the irregular distribution of the focal points. The second method combines the transformation of coordinates with an alternative scanning technique.

This method can be used in near field three-dimensional acoustic imaging to produce maps free of sidelobes and with constant resolution. The robustness of the proposed methods is validated both with computer simulations and experimentally.