Acoustic Imaging Aboard The International Space Station (ISS): Challenges and Preliminary Results

Design and execution of high fidelity acoustic sensing in complex environments poses a number of practical challenges, from accurately measuring the geometry of the setup and estimating the channel response, to time synchronization amongst the sources and receivers. When acoustic experiments are performed on-board the International Space Stations (ISS), the number of constraints and obstacles vastly increases, due to the combination of a highly unpredictable acoustic environment, and restricted availability of crew time. In this paper, we present our preliminary results with a first-of-a-kind acoustic imaging experiment performed aboard the ISS, highlighting the difference between simulations, laboratory measurements, and in-space experiments. We hope that these experiments and results will help the research community in realizing high performance acoustic imaging capabilities in complex environments.