Time reversal processing for source location in an urban environment

Abstract

A simulation study is conducted to demonstrate in principle that time reversal processing can be used to locate sound sources in an outdoor urban area with many buildings. Acoustic pulse propagation in this environment is simulated using a two-dimensional finite difference time domain (FDTD) computation. Using the simulated time traces from only a few sensors and back propagating them with the FDTD model, the sound energy refocuses in the vicinity of the true source location. This time reversal numerical experiment confirms that using information acquired only at non-line-of-sight locations is sufficient to obtain accurate source locations in a complex urban terrain.