Acoustic Camera: All You Need To Know

All the companies desire to provide customers with the best products. Having said that, they must comply with legal requirements, and keep an eye on employee health as well. However, disturbing noise on company premises and products pose an obstacle in trying to achieve so.

How can we prevent this?

Noise reduction and noise protection are gaining importance gradually in today’s world. Moreover, legal requirements for noise emissions are becoming stricter, and both end customers and companies are becoming more and more sensitive to disturbing noise from processes and products. That is why many companies are discovering a novel technology: Acoustic Camera.

What is an Acoustic Camera?

An acoustic camera is a measurement device which is is consist of several microphones which are used to pinpoint sound sources, and determining their corresponding sound pressure level and frequency content.

Just like thermal imaging cameras, an acoustic camera provides a visual identification and quantification of sound, which is different from famous acoustic measurement instruments such as sound pressure level meters.

Why Do You need an Acoustic Camera?

Acoustic disturbances, such as noise, are audible. However, pinpointing them precisely presents a challenge for those who are affected. Of course, you can listen to them! But, pinpointing by listening is seldom successful, and it is even worse when you are dealing with low frequencies.

Furthermore, measurement of the levels of sound pressure does not necessarily provide you with adequate information to identify the cause of an acoustic problem.

In such cases, an acoustic camera quickly yields effective results. In fact, the visual identification of sound sources accelerates the search for the cause, giving the user enough information and time to work on targeted solutions. Engineers in product development and also operators in maintenance and repair can highly benefit from these advantages.

Areas of Application

• Energy Industry
• Measuring Environmental Noise
• Automotive Industry
• Building Acoustics
• Machinery Construction

and more.

The Technical Functionality

If you have a closer look at the human sensory system, you are able to comprehend the functionality of an acoustic camera. We can estimate the direction of a sound source using our two ears. For instance, a vehicle approaching from the left, generates a sound wave which is perceived by our two ears at slightly different points of time. Our brain has the capability of identifying the direction of a single sound event in which the temporal differences is far less than a thousandth of a second!

Acoustic cameras benefit from this principle and, through tremendous technical effort, enable a sound localization accuracy far superior to that of human beings, even where there are multiple sources of different volume and frequency components.

In fact, the so-called microphone array which comprises hundreds of microphones distributed over an area of up to several square meters, is replaced by our two ears. These microphones can process and color code up to 200 megabytes of audio data, and then insert them with into an optical image of the measurement scene.

There are two quality criteria for acoustic cameras: The microphone array and the number of microphones which are distributed on it. Industrial sound events normally have low frequency content far 2 kHz. That is why, in order to obtain an acceptable spatial resolution, the diameter of the microphone array area should in any case be larger than one meter.

Also, to achieve a high dynamic range and thus evaluate quiet and loud sources in one acoustic image, the array should include several hundred distributed microphones.

The innovation – Seven Bel Acoustic Camera ( Sound Scanner)

Seven Bel has taken on the challenge of breaking up the tense interrelations between image quality at low frequencies, mobility, and price by offering a radically novel technology (which is s based on a patented method called Coherence Scanning Holography (CSH)) for sound imaging: the Sound Scanner.

Utilizing this method, Seven Bel Sound Scanner is able to have a compact design and to be a cost-effective acoustic camera with more than 400 virtual microphones scanning an area of up until 5 m²

This allows low-frequency sound events to be measured with unprecedented dynamic range and spatial resolution. Furthermore, working with Seven Bel Sound Scanner is as simple as possible. That is why it is even useful for users who has just started to do sound imaging.

At last, Felixtrument supplies a complete range of innovative acoustics and audio equipment which come in different types and sizes. Therefore, if you are in need of any Sound & Vibration equipment; you may browse through our various products which you may find in the mentioned link; to find the one which best suits your needs.