Development of tools for acquisition, processing and optimisation of acoustic images (UFSC/UFSM/Brazil)

[willdfonseca]

2014 LabVIEW Student Design Competition: South America

All the contents are in the PDF.

Contact Information:

Team Members: João Paulo Ristow (2012).

Faculty Adviser: William D’Andrea Fonseca.

Email Address:

   João Paulo Ristow, jpristow@gmail.com

   William D’Andrea Fonseca, will.fonseca@eac.ufsm.br

Submission Language: English.

Title:

Development of tools for acquisition, processing and optimisation of acoustic images

Description:

The work discusses the development of computational tools for the study, development

and application of an acoustic imaging technique called Beamforming. As an application,

the device developed can be installed in a Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to perform

acoustic monitoring, see Figure 2.4. The software developed aims to assist the study and

clarify the performance limitations of the technique in a controlled environment (laboratory),

see Figures 2.6 to 2.10. Data acquisition tools, post-processing and optimisation are included

as part of the project. The NI hardware were chosen for this scientific research due to their

versatility and flexibility. The PXI and DAQ platforms were used to perform data acquisition

of the all microphones. LabVIEW was used primarily on three fronts: as cross-language

integration and control tool; to control the hardware; and for data processing.

NI Products:

NI DAQ System

1. NI cDAQ-9172
2. 8 modules NI 9233 (32 channels total)
3. NI USB 9162

NI PXI System

1. NI 8353
2. NI PXI 8360
3. 3 boards NI PXI 4498 (48 channels total)
4. NI PXI 4461

The Challenge

To study and simulate inside the laboratory a monitoring system based on acoustic images, creating new technologies for navigation and surveillance with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The technique to be employed should allow not only the detection of sound sources, but also their mapping.

The Solution

The build of a device that simulates the geometry of the body of an aircraft and develop a LabVIEW based platform  able to perform acquisition and data processing (of the microphones signals installed on the model). To accomplish this task the Beamforming technique was combined with Genetic Algorithms (GA). The whole system is designed to be flexible so that it can be used in different experiments. The development steps are briefly described in the following sections.

The full details are in the PDF document attached.

This video explains part of the software and the development.

Nominate Your Professor
by J.P. Ristow

I want to nominate Professor William D’Andrea Fonseca as a vital contributor of my work for his efforts to teach, guide and support the use of LabVIEW in the developing projects.

In 2008 I did not know about the LabVIEW capabilities. Nevertheless, when I started working with it a lot of the engineering concepts turned to be practical instead of just equations. It is known that acoustics is a field that deals with a lot of mathematics, and furthermore, signal processing and instrumentations are needed if someone want to measure and understand connected events. Will (as we call him) has introduced all of these concepts together with the programming theory. Combining those ideas with the included LabVIEWS VIs the processes involved became more intuitive and easy to understand.

Moreover, his incentives always exceeded the frontier of the basic content for an acoustician. Always proposing new secondary projects, oftentimes not connected to the original research topic, but looking for the development of new products and solutions. Watchful to the new technologies, Will has actively encouraged the implementation of new solutions using the most recent technologies and paradigms.

At last but not least, different from most of the professors in the university environment, Will has always demanded and helped to develop not only the functional part of the software, but also a particular design to smooth the user experience during his/her work. Therefore, I learned not only to implement equations and engineering concepts, but to think about the interface visual issues, the ergonomics during the usage and new ways to develop more user friendly and better documented codes.

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Poster:

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-37128

LabVIEW Codes:

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-37127

High resolution pictures

Part1:

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-37125

Part2:

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-37126

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