FPGA-based real-time acoustic camera prototype

Acoustic cameras visualize the origin and intensity of sound waves using an array of microphones and sophisticated signal-processing algorithms. Due to the high memory-bandwidth and signal-processing complexity required by such algorithms, current available devices either compute the corresponding intensity-images off-line or require large and expensive hardware equipment. In this paper, we describe a low-complexity field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based prototype, which computes and visualizes acoustic intensity-images in real-time. The system consists of 32 microphones and performs all signal processing tasks on a low-cost Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA. The prototype computes intensity-images with a resolution of 320×240 pixels at 10 frames-per-second.