This technology from the past can detect things that your eyes can’t see

Hello everyone,

I'm dedicating this article to a detection technology that was very popular in the past and is slowly coming back thanks to AI. It's acoustic detection.

The range of potential applications for acoustic detection is pretty wide, and we can find early examples dating back to the 1930s in the UK, predating radar. Back then, "sound mirrors" were placed on the British coast so observers could hear incoming enemy bombers, providing detection at night and in bad weather. You can see what they look like in the image below, or watch this YouTube video. See more bizarre pre-radar era acoustic detection devices from Europe.

In this edition, we'll look into three interesting applications of acoustic detection and some future implications. It feels a bit like a technology from history is coming back, but in a very different shape and form.

Happy Reading! 📖

🚀Application 1 — Detecting hypersonic missiles

The application: In recent years, China, Russia, and the US have begun developing hypersonic missiles that fly inside Earth's atmosphere, below the coverage of long-range radar. Unlike ballistic missiles, their trajectory is unpredictable, and that makes them harder to spot using radars.

HyperKelp, a California-based company, is developing special acoustic detection devices that are mounted on buoys inside the ocean. Their technology is already capable of detecting sonic booms, offering an alternative measure to detect hypersonic missiles. In this article, Dr. Graeme Rae, HyperKelp's founder and CEO, explains more about the application of the technology and how warfare could change as a result.

🌿 Application 2 — Monitoring plant health

The application: Did you know that you can "listen" to plants? Sonicflora is a Swedish startup developing technology that "listens" to the ultrasonic sounds plants emit to determine stressors related to their health.

The company is in the process of collecting data about ultrasonic sounds that plants make to determine if they suffer from lack of sun, water, viruses, etc., all before they show visible signs. Nowadays, they are focusing on helping tomato and cucumber growers detect problems within greenhouses, and they are working on potentially expanding this technology to more use cases in the future.

💦 Application 3 — Water leak detection

The application: Acoustic water leak detection is a non-invasive method that uses specialized microphones and listening devices to listen for the specific sounds that are created when water escapes from pressurized pipes. You can then see these specific sound waves on a screen or headset. Watch this video to see how this is done.

Companies such as EnviroTrace (Alberta, Canada) demonstrate the potential of this application at the municipal level, across large water systems.

🔮 What this could mean for the future

Why now: There's a clear underlying driver here: the combination of progress in AI/ML models around sound identification and lower-cost listening devices makes acoustic detection a viable solution to detect blind spots across industries.

Implications: This is an interesting trend around applications of acoustic detection, and this is why I'm not analyzing each signal independently, but as one consolidated trend.

The common thread isn't the use of "sound" for detection. It's that acoustic sensing now detects things beyond what other technologies such as radars can detect. We can assume that more use cases will become visible in industries that have blind spots and where the stakes are high, such as defense, utilities, oil & gas, and more.

Potential future developments and opportunities:

For startups, this is the area worth looking into: wherever a domain relies on a dominant sensing method with known blind spots, acoustic detection may now be a viable, non-invasive, low-cost complement. The range of applications is yet to be discovered.

The real moat is proprietary datasets that detect a specific problem and that pose a real opportunity for companies with the skills to create such datasets as well as usable solutions around them. Cross-modal applications could emerge in certain industries (e.g., audio + visual sensing).

In addition, the dual-use nature of such applications could lead to export control and other restrictions due to the changing dynamics around geopolitics.

🙏🏻 A quick ask from you — Product and Product Marketing Leaders

I'd love to chat with those of you in charge of product or GTM roadmaps at startups anywhere from seed to Series B-C.

Let me know if you'd like to take 15–20 minutes online to chat about some of your workflows. I'm developing a workshop/course around these workflows and want to know how to better serve product and GTM leaders.

Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or through info@yaroncohen.com

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If you're building something in the field of information, intelligence, and decision systems anywhere in the world, I want to hear about it. Email me at info@yaroncohen.com or connect with me on LinkedIn.

This article was originally published on The Detectionist Substack, the Substack I write about the future of information, intelligence, and decision systems.