Now that we understand the basics of using Beam Steering, it’s
time to investigate one of the unique tools Beam Steering
includes to even further speed the design process. It’s called
Auto-Focus
and it is available as a design aid whenever you
choose to use 2 or more beams. You’ll find it in the
IC
Configuration
section next to
Beams
.
Clicking on
Auto-Focus
will open the setup window shown to the
right. Notice that you have a choice between Max Coherence
and Max Power. Max Coherence will place all the acoustic cen-
ters at the same point while Max Power will distribute the
acoustic centers along the height of the column.
Make your selection and approve its use by clicking on
OK
and
the program will automatically determine for you the best focus
point for each of the beams.
Auto-Focus will also warn you if the location you have chosen for
the steerable array isn’t ideal.
You can override this warning if you want and the program will
still attempt to properly focus all the beams. You may, however,
want to try moving the array up or down to see if you can find a
better location for the Iconyx array or use more or fewer beams to see it you can eliminate this warning prompt.
So far we have been exploring the capabilities of Beam Steering and not focusing on practical applications. The graphic below shows a typi-
cal setup for a small room (50 feet deep) with the bottom of the array placed 4 feet above floor level. Note that a single IC8-R array was
selected and an opening angle of 25o chosen.
A center frequency of 3150 Hz was also selected for the simulation as it better depicts what the listeners will be hearing than the lower 1000
Hz center frequency we used in previous simulations.
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Users Manual
IC-R
