13Can you describe the real-time sound source identification system?Kikuchi: It’s an innovative product that can identify the source of a sound and visualize the results of identification in a user-friendly manner.So it displays the sound on a PC screen?Kikuchi: Yes, that’s what it does. The prod-uct has a camera at its center, surrounded by multiple microphones. It records both images and sound simultaneously, which makes it crystal clear where the sound is coming from. Even when there are sev-eral sound sources, each one can be nar-rowed down by adjusting the frequency range. It’s very intuitive. Where is this product used?Kikuchi: Mostly at manufacturing sites. It’s often used at sites for product devel-opment for electric appliances and auto-mobiles, applications where silence or near-silence matters. For example, if you want to minimize the sound a refrig-erator in development is making, you can measure the rear side of the refrig-erator to instantly see how much sound the compressor or the fan is producing. You can implement effective measures to reduce sound once you identify the noisy parts.Masumi: You can measure such sounds by placing a sound level meter near the product, but then you would have to search for the locations of the potential sound sources, which would be time- and labor-intensive.Kikuchi: What our customers like about this product is that one look is all it takes for anyone to find the source. For exam-ple, if a user complains that a certain product of the customer is too noisy, you can let the customer see the PC screen to explain to them where the noise is com-ing from. And they can see how effec-tive the results of the repair work are. So this product is also being used in quality Is there a limit to the size of what it can measure?Kikuchi: If the sound source is located within the 200-meter range of the sensor, it can measure even large objects from a distance. For example, if a problem involves noise from an expressway, this can be used to measure the sound from the expressway and its surroundings from some distance to identify the source of the noise. Or, if the issue involves noise countermeasures for a factory, the entire assurance sections at manufacturing companies.Masumi: When I showed the results on a customer’s site once, all around there spoke up in surprise: Wow!Kikuchi: One of the advantages of this product is that it takes so little time to set up. You do need to make the initial set-tings the first time you use it, but after that, all you need is to open your laptop and launch the software. It’s ready to use in less than five minutes.factory can be measured from a distance to see which building is producing the most noise. Masumi: Depending on the case, we also measure small objects. In one unusu-al case, we were asked to locate the exact point on the window where the sound from the room was leaking.Kikuchi: This product was used in a study on mysterious sounds, like the myste-rious cracking or creaking sound you sometimes hear inside the house you can’t identify. It was used to measure those sounds.Could you say more about your job?Kikuchi: The job of the Technical Sup-port Section, to which Masumi belongs, is to visit customers who are considering purchasing our products and to present demonstrations.Masumi: On the other hand, Kikuchi’s S&V Technology Support Team responds to the needs of the customers who have something to be measured but who do not wish to purchase a unit.Kikuchi: The key objective of my team is, through such services, to increase the number of people who are fans of Rion and our products. What’s the potential of the real-time sound source identification system?Kikuchi: I’m hoping it will find uses for security or for saving lives. Also—and this is a true story—this product was once used by a professor at a university who was doing a study on gymnasts.Masumi: Yes, I remember that one. He was studying the relationship between the sound made by the springboard and the results of the performance among highly skilled gymnasts.Kikuchi: That’s right. I would love to have as many people know about this product as possible and surprise me by using it in ways that I couldn’t imagine. This prod-uct is that fascinating.An image of measurement results for a car’s en-gine compartment with the hood opened, visual-ized with the software. This makes it possible to instantly identify what part of the engine is gen-erating the sound.Images displayed on the screen with the soft-ware. They show not just the location of the sound source, but the frequency analysis results and color mapping in real-time.Acoustic Camera MultitileThe Multitile consists of three hexagonal micro-phone arrays surrounding a camera in the center. It can process sounds in the frequency range from 220 Hz to 20 kHz. The other two models in the lineup are the Hextile for the frequency range of 410 Hz to 20 kHz and the Multitile-LF (low frequency analysis) for the frequency range of 120 Hz to 1 kHz.A plot showing the results of FFT analysis, one of the plot types available in the software. The plot maps the volume of sound at set frequency inter-vals.
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