Supervision: Benjamin Ricaud,Hervé Lissek

Project type: Semester project (bachelor) Semester project (master) Master thesis

Finished

Microphone arrays can be used to locate and track moving sound sources, thanks to advanced signal processing techniques. Such techniques have been developed in a recent thesis to serve for autonomous traffic monitoring: the time signals captured by multiple microphones within a compact array located along a road were processed to count the traffic density, to derive the speed of the vehicles, and estimate the vehicle dimensions, just by passively capturing the sound emanating from car passing by.

Nowadays, some car owners use modified exhaust systems aimed at boosting the noise characteristics of their engine, leading to important noise pollution especially in cities. The trend is so important that political stakeholders are asking technical tools allowing the autonomous identification of such vehicles.

The present project aims at adapting an existing microphone array to the specific problem of modified exhaust system identification. For that, the following steps are required:

  • Measurements and collection of a database of sounds of "sport cars"

  • Analysis of the characteristics of the sounds of the database

  • Development of the microphone signal processing to track mobile sources

  • If time allows, listening test to identify what aspects of the sound triggers the annoyance

Profile: Electrical engineering, Micro-engineering, Physics, Mechanics

Prerequisites: Acoustics, Electroacoustics

Learning outcome: Sound measurements, acoustic signals analysis,

Context: Experiments (30%), analysis (50%), listening-tests (20%)