[makoto12]

The article (and what is generally talked about with phased arrays) generally focuses on radio wave based phasing. This is pretty inaccessible to average hacker. However it works just as well with audio, and can be rigged up much more easily. You can get quite solid results and learn quite a lot about DSP in general

[Animats]

Beam-forming microphones are quite common. 1D ones are very common for desktop use. 2D ones are ceiling-mounted for conference rooms. This one has 96 microphones. [1] There are even systems which record all the inputs from several hundred small microphones and beam-form later, so an observer can later listen in on any conversation in the room. At least one of those was installed in a prison cafeteria.

[1] https://www.nearity.co/products/ceiling-array-microphone-a50

[rich_sasha]

It's something on my bucket list actually, build a phased array of _something_. Sound indeed sounds (hmm) simpler. Can you recommend any materials for a noob, with a solid STEM background? Many thanks!

[makoto12]

You want to start with narrow band. So object tracking, where the object is emitting a single frequency is a great start.

i think at 2khz (it is blazingly irritating to listen to), you need to space your microphones about 15cm apart. so you don't need too much room. Then it's just hooking up 4-6 microphones to a wooden board. Sampling with a decent microprocessor. You can do the processing on board, or ship it to a laptop, and do the processing there.

Just take care with your microphones and sampling. Any large defects will greatly inhibit your results.

Then for the algorithm, do a delay and sum. it's the dumbest approach, but the easiest to understand, and should work