Project Description

What It Is and Why It Matters

AcuNode II is a distributed environmental noise monitoring system built for real outdoor deployment at an industrial research site in Alberta, Canada. Each sensor node captures A-weighted sound pressure levels through a MEMS microphone on a custom PCB, transmits measurements over LoRa radio to a central Raspberry Pi hub, which bridges the data into Home Assistant for live visualization, directional noise detection, and mobile phone alerts.

The problem it solves is straightforward: our sponsoring organization operates an active industrial and research site where construction, equipment testing, and general operations create unpredictable noise. They needed a way to know when noise levels become problematic and  critically where that noise is coming from. Commercial solutions start at $5,000+ per monitoring station and don't offer multi-point directional awareness. AcuNode II does it for far cheaper.

The system was developed as a sponsored capstone project at the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering. It won first place in the Electrical discipline at the 2026 Engineering Design Fair.

more details coming soon...