Generic Miniature Acoustic Processor for Distributed Beamforming

The U.S. Army is seeking distributed and networked acoustic processing techniques for wide-area surveillance, detection, identification, and tracking of ground vehicles, snipers, and other personnel. To meet this Army need, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to design and develop a new generic miniature acoustic processor, the Adaptive Information Remote Tactical Acoustic Processor (AIRTAP), to directly transmit the essential acoustic signal from remotely deployed sensors to a central computer, which performs beamforming for target identification and tracking. The AIRTAP is a miniature electronics package with an innovative architecture based on unique integration of commercial off-the-shelf hardware, including generic miniature digital signal processing, SRAM, and an FPGA controller, performing two-step compression: acoustic wavelet maxima analysis, reducing data by 25:1, and compression optimal vector entropy processing for an additional 4:1. Therefore, AIRTAP can achieve the 100:1 compression the Army is seeking without any loss of essential acoustic signatures. In Phase I, a demonstration prototype AIRTAP system was developed, including microphone/GPS sensor, acoustic signal processing and compression, and wireless communication. In Phase II, full prototype AIRTAP hardware/software will be developed, including new integrated circuit hardware with microphone, GPS, acoustic processing, and wireless communication, with extensive prototype testing/validation using GFE target tracking and classification algorithms.