Episode 3 - The Future of Defense Acoustics

First of all, microphones has actually a huge dynamic range.

We are talking about a dynamic range for more than 120 dB.

uh, In a battlefield, I guess that if we have a big blast, then we will have sound levels about maybe 180 and maybe even more.

And when there's silence in the battlefield, then we have maybe wind noise, 60 dB or lower.

So we need actually a microphone that are able to cover this big range.

And yeah, the microphone has a dynamic range of 120 dB, but for detecting drones, which normally has a lower sound noise level when they are flying, We need to select our microphone so it's still able to measure the high levels, but also able to measure the lower levels from the drones.

If we select a microphone with a lower upper dynamic range, so we are not able to measure correct at the high levels, then the microphone will overload, maybe not only the microphone capsule itself, but also the preamplifier, so we will overload the first part of our data collection.

If we overload there, then the microphone preamplifier will satirize, And we might lose important information for a couple of seconds before the microphone is back.

And when you say

overload, you say electrical overload? Electrical overload.

Can it be mechanical as well? Also mechanical

overload.

Can you rip the

membrane in the microphone as well? I mean, I know you can, of course, but if you're overloaded with too high sound pressure level.

Then it has to be very, very, very high sound pressure

levels.

Normally, a microphone are able to withstand much more than it's actually rated for.

But do you get a clipping on

the electric signal? You will get a clipping.

Either the microphone itself will be clipping or the pre-amplifier will be clipping.

And then you introduce artifacts in the signal, non-linearities, high frequency.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

That's true, that's true.