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A Class of Optimal Broadband Beamformer Geometries Designed for Easy Construction

Jacob J. CHRISTENSEN and Jrgen HALD

Brel & Kjr Sound & Vibration Measurement A/S, Skodsborgvej 307, DK-2850 Nrum, Denmark Very regular beamformer array geometries will have Grating Lobes in their directivity pattern when applied above a certain frequency. The grating lobes can be suppressed by removing periodicities, typically by the use of random arrays or spiral arrays. Large irregular arrays are, however, difficult to build due to their complicated support structure and cabling. The present paper describes a novel array design, which maintains the low grating lobe level of irregular arrays, but which has a regularity that allows a much simpler support structure and cabling. The performance is compared with that of comparable irregular arrays, and verified through practical measurements Keywords: Noise Source Location, Phased Array, Beamforming. 1. INTRODUCTION As illustrated in Figure 1, we consider a planar array of M microphones at locations rm ( m = 1,2,..., M ) in the xy-plane of our coordinate system. When such an array is applied for Delay-and-Sum Beamforming, the measured pressure signals p m are individually delayed and then summed, [1]: the direction in which the array is focused see Figure 1 and k = c is the wave number. In equation (3) an implicit time factor equal to e is assumed. Through our choice of time delays m ( ) , or equivalently of the preferred wave number vector k k , we have tuned the beamformer on the farfield direction . Ideally we would like to measure only signals arriving from that direction, in order to get a perfect localization of the sound source. To investigate, how much leakage we will get from plane waves incident from other directions, we assume now a plane wave incident with a wave number vector k 0 different from the preferred k k . The pressure measured by the microphones will then be:
j t

b( , t ) = p m (t m ( )) .
m =1

(1)

The individual time delays m are chosen with the aim of achieving selective directional sensitivity in a specific direction, characterized here by a unit vector . This objective is met by adjusting the time delays in such a way that signals associated with a plane wave, incident from the direction , will be aligned in time before they are summed. Geometrical considerations (see Figure 1) show that this can be obtained by choosing:

Pm ( ) = P0 e jk 0 rm ,

(4)

which according to equation (3) will give the following output from the beamformer:

rm m = , c

(2)

B ( , ) = P0 e j (k k 0 )rm P0 W (k k 0 ) . (5)
m =1

where c is the propagation speed of sound. Signals arriving from other far-field directions will not be aligned before the summation, and therefore they will not coherently add up. The frequency domain version of expression (1) for the Delay-and-Sum beamformer output is:

Here, the function W

W (K ) e jK rm
m =1

(6)

B ( , ) = Pm ( ) e j m ( )
m =1 M

is the so called Array Pattern, defined entirely by the array geometry. It has the form of a generalized spatial DFT of a weighting function, which equals one over the array area and zero outside. Because the microphone positions rm have z-coordinate equal to zero, the Array Pattern is independent of K z . We shall therefore consider the Array Pattern W only in the ( K x , K y ) plane, i.e. we consider the projections of the wave

(3)
jk rm

= Pm ( ) e
m =1

Here, is the temporal angular frequency, k k is the wave number vector of a plane wave incident from

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K 3 k=3 c will be visible, so the upper 2 2
limiting frequency becomes

max (30) = 2 K max c . 3

Main lobe

Plane wave

The width of the mainlobe of the Array Pattern can be estimated from the similarity of the expression (5) with a 2D DFT of a rectangular type of spatial window function covering the area of the array: The mainlobe width will be inversely proportional to the diameter D of the array, and the first null will be approximately at

K = K min = 2 D , [1].

k = k
rm
Origin

Phased Array of Microphones

Figure 1: Illustration of a phased microphone array, a directional sensitivity represented by a mainlobe, and a Plane wave incident from the direction of the mainlobe.

number vectors onto that plane. There, W has an area with high values around the origin with a peak value equal to M at ( K x , K y ) = (0, 0) . According to equation (5), this peak represents the high sensitivity to plane waves coming from the direction , in which the array is focused. Figure 1 contains an illustration of that peak, which is called the mainlobe. Other directional peaks, which are called sidelobes, will cause waves from such directions to leak into the measurement of the mainlobe direction . This will produce false peaks/images in a measured directional source map. A good phased array design can therefore be characterized by having low Maximum Sidelobe Level (MSL), measured relative to the mainlobe level. With reference to equation (5), both k and k 0 have length equal to the wave number k, and they can have opposite direction pointing for example in the positive and negative x-axis directions meaning that k k 0 2k . Therefore, at a given frequency only the section K 2k = 2 c of the Array Pattern will be visible. And if the Array Pattern has low MSL for K K max = 2 max c , then a beamformer application will provide accurate directional source maps with a low degree of false images up to the frequency beamformer will be focused on directions not more than 30 off-axis, then the projection of the wave number vector k ( ) k 0 on the array plane will be shorter than
3 2

2. OPTIMAL ARRAY GEOMETRIES Very regular phased array geometries, with a high degree of periodicity, will have so-called grating lobes in their directivity pattern, when they are applied above a certain frequency. A grating lobe is a sidelobe with amplitude of the same size as the mainlobe, created by spatial aliasing. Consider as an example a rectangular array with constant microphone spacing d in both the xand the y-direction. For such an array, the Array Pattern W of equation (6) will have a first grating lobe at ( K x , K y ) = ( 2 d , 0) . According to the above description, this grating lobe will enter the visible region at the frequency for which 2 c = 2 / d . At that frequency the microphone spacing d is equal to half a wavelength. At higher frequency there may be false images of the same magnitude as the true image in measured directional source maps. Grating lobes can be avoided by removing the periodicities, for example by the use of random geometries, which will provide a variety of different spatial sampling intervals and thereby suppress the spatial aliasing problems, [1]. Large random arrays are, however, much more difficult to build than more regular arrays. Both the support structure and the cabling are more complicated and as a consequence the operation in the practical measurement situation is difficult or tedious. Various non-random designs have been introduced, which provide also a variety of different spatial sampling intervals and therefore rather low MSL over a wide frequency range for example array geometries based on one or several concentric logarithmic spirals, [2], or on an Archimedes spiral, [3]. But the spiral arrays are still quite complicated to build due to the complicated curved geometries. See Figure 2. Also, the need for high resolution in the far field can only be met with relatively large dimensions of the arrays. Thus, an array with a diameter of several meters is often required. In connection with outdoor applications it is therefore of practical importance that the array construction allows for easy assembly and disassembly at the site of use, and for easy transport.

max = 1 K max c . 2

If the

k . Therefore only the section

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Figure 2: Schematic representation of a 90 ch. Archimedes spiral with the same diameter (2.43m) as the B&K wheel array [Fig.3]. The microphone spacing, measured as arc length along the spiral curve, is 0.3 m. Figure 3 shows an example of a new-patented Wheel Array design, which can be optimized to have very low MSL over a wide frequency band, but which is built of a set of identical line arrays, simplifying the mechanical construction and the cabling. The patented design consists of typically an odd number N of small identical line arrays arranged around a center as spokes in a wheel, with identical angular spacing between the spokes. All spokes are tilted the same angle away from radial direction. The geometry is invariant under a rotation n 360 / N around the center, n being any integer. The mechanical design of the array shown in Figure 3 is fully modular: all spokes can easily be detached from the supporting inner and outer rings which themselves can be disassembled. Thus the whole array structure can be disassembled and transported in a standard size flight case. Regarding the cabling each spoke mounts 6 microphones, which through integrated cabling, are connected to a common plug (LEMOconnector). Each spoke is then connected to a 6-channel input module through a single cable. Despite its irregularity the Wheel Array has its sensors grouped in easily identifiable logical units. In a practical measurement situation, which requires channel detection, calibration and occasionally detection of hardware faults, this is a great advantage. The array diameter determines the width of the mainlobe and thus the angular resolution. Having selected the array diameter D, the number of spokes and the number of microphones per spoke, the following variables are adjusted to provide the lowest possible value of the MSL: 1) The rotation of the spokes away from radial direction. 2) The position of the microphones on a spoke. With 6 microphones on each spoke, we have 7 adjustable parameters to minimize the MSL over the following area in the Array Pattern (see section 1):

Figure 3: Example of a 90-channel Brel & Kjr wheel array for beamforming. The wheel array depicted has 15 identical spokes, with integrated cabling, each carrying 6 microphones. The wheel diameter is 2.43 m (patent pending). Minimize Max |W(K)| over the area

Here,

max

2 max 2 K , D c

(7)

is the upper limiting frequency for use of

the array. This optimization is performed by the use of a Minimax optimization program. The Wheel Array of Figure 3 was optimized with max = 3.0 kHz. For a given diameter and number of channels the Archimedes spiral array can be optimized for a given frequency range by adjusting the microphone spacing, d (d = 0.3m was chosen for optimal performance below 3 kHz). Figure 4 shows the MSL as a function of frequency for the optimized Wheel Array of Figure 3 and the comparable spiral array shown in Figure 2 These arrays have approximately the same diameter D = 2.43m and therefore the same mainlobe width (2/D) and spatial angular resolution. Both arrays are designed for the frequency range 0.5 3.0 kHz but clearly the Wheel Array is superior in performance. Due to the grating lobes, which always are present in regular arrays, the traditional X-shaped arrays and rectangular grid-arrays perform even worse. See reference [5] for a discussion.

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0 90 ch. Archimedes spiral -3 90 ch. B&K wheel array

-6

MSL [dB]

-9

-12

-15

-18 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

f [Hz]

Figure 4: MSL as function of frequency for the B&K Wheel array [Fig.3] and the spiral array [Fig.2].

3. MEASUREMENTS In order to demonstrate the capabilities of the 90 ch. Wheel Array of Figure 3 we have performed a measurement on a car (Volvo S60). The vehicle was installed in an in-door test bench and the engine was operated at 2500 RPM with no load. The Wheel Array was placed in parallel with the side of the car at a distance of 2.9m and the stationary sound field was recorded for 5 sec. at 16 KHz sampling rate using the Brel & Kjr Acoustic Test Consultant (Type 7761) running on the PULSE measurement system. Data were post-processed with the PULSE Beamforming application (Type 7768) and a representative result is shown in Figure 5. Despite acoustically challenging measurement conditions (back ground noise and reflecting walls, ceiling and floor) a useful dynamic range of 12 dB is achieved. The beamforming calculation clearly reveals a leakage from the front wheel box at high frequencies. 4. CONCLUSION The new-patented Wheel Array with tilted spokes can be optimized to have low Maximum Sidelobe Level (MSL) over a very broad frequency range. Its performance is superior to that of comparable Archimedes spiral arrays. The Wheel Array type has an irregular geometry but due to its modular construction it is easy to manufacture, transport and operate. As demonstrated by practical measurements the low sidelobe levels of the Wheel Array makes its useful even in acoustically non-ideal environments.

Figure 5: Beamforming result using the 90 ch. B&K Wheel Array shown in Figure 3. The upper display shows the sound pressure levels resulting from the beamforming calculation as a contour plot. The lower display gives the spectrum in 1/3-octave bands at a point on the front tire, and the highlighted interval (2.03.15 kHz) is the selected frequency range which the contour plot covers. (Screen-shot from the PULSE Beamforming application).

REFERENCES 1. D. H. Johnson and D. E. Dudgeon, Array Signal Processing: Concepts and Techniques, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1993. 2. J. R. Underbrink and R. P. Dougherty, Array Design for Non-intrusive Measurement of Noise Sources, Proceedings of Noise-Con 96, 757-762, 1996. 3. A. Nordborg, J. Wedemann and L. Willenbrink, Optimum Array Microphone Configuration, Proceedings of Inter-Noise 2000. 4. G. Elias, Source Localization with a Twodimensional Focused Array: Optimal Signal Processing for a Cross-shaped Array, Proceedings of Inter-Noise 95, 1175-1178, 1995. 5. J. Hald and J.J. Christensen, to appear in Proceedings of Inter-Noise 2002.

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