Earlier in the week, a friend sent me a video of a product from Fluke that visualizes air leaks and other noises. I had no idea such a technology existed. Spent some time learning more, and now I wanted to share what I found.
Acoustic cameras are essentially devices that can “see” sound. Think of them as thermal imagers, except for sound. They combine a specialized array of MEMS microphones with a camera interface to capture and display noise sources as colourful, real-time heat-map images. While this might sound futuristic, the tech has been around for the last few decades, but I never knew.
So how does it work? An array of microphones picks up sound waves from different directions. These signals are then processed by a beam forming algorithm that calculates the precise location of each sound source. The system superimposes a heatmap-like overlay onto a visual image or video feed, highlighting exactly where noise originates. It’s like having a set of highly trained ears that can pinpoint the faintest hiss or hum in a busy environment. Some units have audio freq range selection so that you can select to really reduce surrounding noise to focus on a specific band.
Its applications are varied. Factories use them to quickly spot air leaks, carmakers use them to reduce cabin noise, and mechanics use them to find hidden unusual vibration noises in factory equipment. Some factories rely on them for preventative maintenance, before they become costly. Environmental folks employ these tools for tasks like monitoring wildlife habitats or measuring noise pollution levels. It’s used to detect electric partial discharges in High voltage electric power delivery systems. Corona discharge, arcing emits ultrasound that can be picked up via this tech.
The distance of capture is not that high though. If it was, I would have loved to put this up on a drone and get a bird’s eye view of the city and its noise level sources. Nice little tech if you ask me.
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