A user-friendly system for microphone array research

Describes the design and use of a digital acoustic array signal processing research environment. The system unites the interactive numerical processing capabilities of The MathWorks' MATLAB with multichannel data acquisition/signal processing hardware and an overhead Cartesian robot for accurate sound source placement. In conjunction with additional electronic and electromechanical peripherals, the user-friendly environment facilitates the spatial and temporal analysis and evaluation of acoustic array algorithms. Real-data experiments and their results are provided to demonstrate the flexibility and ease-of-use of the array system.