WAH-i: Microphone Array Geometry Design and Optimisation
WAH-i: Task-Optimised Microphone Array Geometry Design This release provides the complete WAH-i framework for designing microphone-array geometries against explicit localisation requirements. WAH-i extends the Widefield Acoustics Heuristic from forward evaluation—determining the accuracy produced by a given array—to inverse, iterative design. Microphone coordinates are progressively adjusted to maximise the proportion of a user-defined three-dimensional observation volume that satisfies a specified localisation-accuracy threshold, subject to physical and deployment constraints. Included in this release Interactive MATLAB GUI for configuring, running, and inspecting array optimisation Standalone web installers for macOS and 64-bit Windows Core localisation and derivative-free geometry-optimisation source code Canonical starting geometries for arrays containing 4–12 microphones Support for user-defined and randomly initialised geometries Configurable signal, noise, spatial-grid, accuracy, and physical-constraint parameters Export of optimised coordinates to CSV Export of complete optimisation histories to MAT files Automated single-run reports and diagnostic visualisations Batch-running and repeated-run analysis pipelines Data, figures, and summary tables supporting the accompanying manuscript Analysis and reproducibility updates The repository includes the current scripts used to generate: Pass-rate trajectories across repeated optimisation runs Before-and-after positional and angular error distributions Accuracy-versus-distance summaries Microphone-coordinate drift diagnostics Representative spatial error maps Geometry-compactness and power-law scaling analyses Economy and responsiveness comparisons Reference plots of the six canonical starting configurations Analysis paths are resolved from the repository location, allowing the scripts to be run without user-specific filesystem paths. Figure saving can be disabled while plots are being adjusted, preventing accidental overwriting of publication outputs. Canonical starting configurations The release includes the following configuration-ID mapping: Pyramid — 4 microphones Tetrahedron — 4 microphones Octahedron — 6 microphones Double tetrahedron — 8 microphones Pentagonal antiprism — 10 microphones Icosahedron — 12 microphones These names describe starting geometries only. WAH-i subsequently adjusts individual microphone coordinates, and the resulting optimised arrays need not retain the corresponding canonical shapes. Requirements Running the MATLAB source requires MATLAB R2023b or newer and the relevant Optimization, Signal Processing, Statistics and Machine Learning, and Communications toolboxes. The standalone applications do not require a MATLAB licence. They require a compatible MATLAB Runtime, which the web installers can download during installation. Important scope note Optimised configurations are conditional on the selected signal properties, observation volume, spatial resolution, accuracy criterion, array aperture, inter-microphone spacing, and computational budget. Users should rerun the optimisation using parameters representative of their recording system, target species, environment, and research question rather than treating the supplied geometries as universally optimal. Associated manuscript WAH-i: Optimising Microphone Array Geometry for Customised Localisation Accuracy https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.02.07.704547 Licence The software and MATLAB analysis code are released under the GNU General Public License v3. See LICENSE.md for details.