Tracking aircraft flybys using a microphone array
Richard Lee Culver, Stephen M. Tenney, John M. Noble · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2017
Ferguson and Quinn (JASA 96(2), 1994) develop equations to describe the time-frequency characteristics of an acoustic signal radiated by an aircraft and received by a stationary microphone. These equations enable construction of curves in time-frequency space whose shape depends upon several parameters, namely, aircraft speed and height above the microphone. We have utilized Ferguson and Quinn’s equations to track an aircraft fly by under very low signal-to-noise conditions using six microphones which are spaced too far apart to form beams. We make use of signal coherence across the array, and we develop a time-frequency “matched filter” with replicas that are based upon aircraft speed, height above ground, and closest point of approach distance.