Mark III Enhancement Program

The NIST array was the first public-domain digital array hardware design. It introduced the (then) novel idea of live capture and streaming of raw array microphone audio over Ethernet for use by one or more computers on a network. The design has been improved over the years to bring it to the Mark III version 2 (2005). The present system is an excellent tool for research into microphone arrays, audiovisual computer interfaces, and smart spaces. With some modification to address existing issues, as well as the addition of some useful features, the system can be successfully tailored for a variety of commercial, academic, and governmental applications. Our proposal focuses on fundamental enhancements to the motherboard and the microboards that will provide the most near-term benefit to the NIST research application and goals, while at the same time providing a solid foundation for Phase II and Phase III (commercialization) objectives. This approach precipitates Phase I objectives to reduce the digital noise in the system and improve the system¿s multi-modal functionality (i.e. better fusion of audio, video and other sensor information).