LOUD: Large acOUstic Data Array Project
Data
Please see
the data page for experimental data
collected with the array.
Purpose
Ubiquitous computing environments are characterized by an unbounded
amount of noise and crosstalk. In these environments, traditional
methods of sound capture are insufficient, and array microphones are
needed in order to obtain a clean recording of desired speech. The LOUD
(Large Acoustic Data Array) is a novel 1020-node microphone array
utilizing the
Raw tiled-processor
architecture (TPA) for computation.
The LOUD modular microphone array currently consists of 1020
microphones. Our reasons for building such a large array are twofold.
First, according to sensor array theory, the performance of a microphone
array improves linearly as the size of the array grows. LOUD is
currently the
largest microphone array in the world [Guinness Book of World Records, 2007]. Second, ubiquitous computing applications
often involve a large number of simultaneous feeds of streaming data
(e.g., video, audio, haptics, etc). The I/O bandwidth and computational
power necessary to process these streaming data has pushed the limits of
traditional computer architectures and I/O schemes. To this end, our
group has been designing a scalable polymorphic computer architecture
called Raw, specifically
designed to process large volumes of streaming data, such as that
created by a microphone array. Our microphone array, which generates
nearly 50 MB of data every second, is an appropriate target application
for this architecture.
People
Prof. Anant Agarwal
Ken Steele
Eugene Weinstein
Publications
- E. Weinstein, K. Steele, A. Agarwal, and J. Glass, LOUD: A
1020-Node Microphone Array and Acoustic Beamformer. International
Congress on Sound and Vibration (ICSV), July 2007, Cairns,
Australia. [PDF] [Slides PDF]
- E. Weinstein, K. Steele, A. Agarwal, and J. Glass.
LOUD: A 1020-Node Modular Microphone Array and Beamformer for
Intelligent Computing Spaces. MIT/LCS Technical Memo MIT-LCS-TM-642,
April, 2004 [PDF].
Pictures
Pictures here
Videos
Microphone Array and Stereo Camera integration -- tracking two people as they move around.
[Download] [Watch on YouTube]
Microphone
Array - switching between several people all talking at the same time.
[Download]
[Watch on YouTube]
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