Low cost, hand held acoustic camera

The work described in this paper focuses on the design of a low cost, hand held acoustic camera. The novel process of creating the camera has been entirely engineered in ABB Ltd. Even though the creation of the acoustic camera with the use of 3D printing techniques may come at the cost of slightly decreased accuracy of the measurements, when compared with the commercially available solutions, however this is entirely acceptable in many applications. Additionally the costs saving related with the in-house manufacturing adds to the attractiveness of such an approach. The paper aims to present that with the advent of new technologies e.g. 3D printing it becomes possible for simple-design tools capable of delivering high quality results to be created by virtually anyone.