Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1414667
52 I ICT TODAY "Over the past 10 to 15 years, we've experimented with various AV solutions in our meeting rooms to identify the best solution," says Goodwin. "We needed a more balanced sound throughout the room without any dead spots. Other solutions we've tried in the past picked up too much background noise and chatter, and that was the number one complaint we had from users." See Figure 3. FIGURE 3: UWCA holds many meetings with local partners at their facility and required advanced AV systems with clearer sound and audio, which was especially important with increased virtual meetings during the pandemic. Beamforming technology dates back more than 100 years when it was first used in the military for deter- mining the location of aircraft, ships, and submarines. The technology evolved with the introduction of micro- processors in the 1970s and now digital signal processing has substantially advanced the technology. Beamforming microphones work by combining microphones in a phased array versus omnidirectional microphones that pick up sound from all directions. The signals from the microphones are combined so that signals at particular angles experience constructive interference (i.e., overlapping sound waves where both wave crests meet and amplitude is increased) while others experience destructive interference (i.e., overlapping sound waves where wave crests from one signal meet the troughs of the other, thereby subtracting amplitude). This allows certain sounds to be amplified and others to be reduced. The preferred sound is then fed into the AV system (Figure 4). Ceiling Ceiling Table Wall FIGURE 4: Beamforming microphone patterns work by combining signals at particular angles that experience constructive interference while others experience destructive interference. Source: ClearOne. In addition to beamforming microphones for audio clarity, UWCA needed an AV solution that would integrate with their existing IP-based phone systems for conference calls and common conference applications like Webex, GoToMeeting, Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams. They also needed a system capable of supporting pan-tilt-zoom cameras with full high-definition 1080p video and optical zoom to capture all participants in the room more effectively.