Building the Acoustic Light Array

The first big project out of CySI Labs is the Acoustic Light Array: a field of small, battery-powered outdoor nodes that listen, work out where a sound came from, and show that direction with light. They can also play sound together, including steering it across a group.

The node. Each node is a lantern on a stake with a ring of four microphones, a small speaker, and a ring of 24 RGB LEDs, running on two swappable 18650 cells. The nodes keep tightly synchronized time over a wireless link, which is what lets a group of them locate sounds together. A node can run on its own, under a central controller, or as part of a cluster, and it can be active (playing sound and light), passive (listening and locating), or both.

The cluster. Nodes group into clusters of up to six, coordinated by a Raspberry Pi and a desktop app. The app includes a layout planner that suggests where to place nodes and how high, and a planned tripod mount will allow 3D layouts. The full-scale goal is around 100 nodes.

Where it stands. This is still design-stage work. The system spec is done, the node schematic is complete and moving into circuit board layout, and the node firmware and desktop control app are running against a simulated array. No hardware has been built yet. Next up is a small first batch of prototype nodes.

Follow along here as it comes together.