Assessment of planar array accuracy for 3D sound source reconstruction with Bayesian Focusing

As planar microphone arrays were initially designed for bidimensional sound source localisation, their use for three-dimensional acoustic imaging consistently suffers from a poor resolution along the normal axis. Such a statement is already well documented for beamforming approaches and their declensions. Bearing this in mind, this paper delves into the possibilities offered by inverse methods and especially iterative Bayesian Focusing to tackle this issue and deliver accurate source positions in three dimensions based on planar array measurements only. To this end, an experimental set up is designed: omnidirectional sources are mounted in a wooden mock-up featuring faces at different distances from an 81 MEMs planar array. Based on this measurements, a benchmark study of sound source reconstruction on a 3D mesh of the mock-up is conducted and compared to classical 2D acoustic maps set at different depths. The latter process is declined for various source correlation values and at extended frequency ranges. By doing so, the current paper delivers an overview of the ability to discriminate acoustic sources along the normal axis of a planar array, on a simple and well controlled test case, with a view to provide guidelines for further applications of 3D acoustic imaging on complex geometries.