Geolocating sources of acoustic signals with a balloon-borne aeroseismometer
| DWPI Title: Airborne balloon for detecting infrasonic signals and concurrent vibrations caused by infrasonic signals using balloon-borne aeroseismometer, has processor for computing direction of arrival of infrasonic signal in reference frame of airborne balloon based upon signal received from motion sensor |
| Abstract: Various embodiments described herein provide for a balloon-borne aeroseismometer that can detect infrasonic signals and concurrent vibrations caused by the infrasonic signals. Through a set of motion sensors that can detect acceleration in three planes, the aeroseismometer can determine the direction of vibration and thus determine a travel path of the infrasonic signal relative to the aeroseismometer. The aeroseismometer can also translate the direction of the source from a reference frame of the aeroseismometer to an external reference frame, such as a planetary coordinate system, in order to identify potential locations of a source of the infrasonic signals. |
| Use: Airborne balloon for detecting infrasonic signals and concurrent vibrations caused by infrasonic signals using a balloon-borne aeroseismometer (claimed), during nuclear explosions and rocket launches. |
| Advantage: The balloon utilizes an aeroseismometer to determine direction-of-arrival of the infrasonic signals in the reference frame in an efficient manner, and characterizes the infrasonic signals to propagate around obstacles with low dissipation, and propagate over vast distances through Earth's atmosphere with low atmospheric absorption to enable propagation by way of multiple bounces between a surface of the Earth and other regions of the atmosphere. |
| Novelty: The balloon (102) has a processor for receiving an indication that an infrasonic signal (106) is detected by an acoustic sensor from the acoustic sensor that is in communication with a computing system on the airborne balloon, and receiving a signal indicating that a vibration of the airborne balloon occurred concurrently with the infrasonic signal is detected by the acoustic sensor from a motion sensor that is in communication with the computing system on the airborne balloon, where the signal comprises directional information relating to movement in each of three planes of a reference frame of the airborne balloon. |
| Filed: 3/14/2022 |
| Application Number: US17694062A |
| Tech ID: SD 15654.0 |
| This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention. |
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