International audienceThe interest of the authors concerns sniper detection using time-reversal techniques on the Mach cone in a reverberant urban environment. In order to setup a safe and reproducible experimental framework at a reduced scale, it is possible to synthesize a N-wave with a conical geometry by means of loudspeakers disposed along a hypothetical ring axis. The supersonic nature of the simulated displacement leads to a set of constraints, both on spatial and temporal samplings, correlated to the structure of the medium and to the digital sampling of the N-shaped signal. Those constraints are theoretically studied to ensure reconstruction of the conical wavefront. A rst experiment has been realized, that allowed the synthesis of a Mach wave using 15 speakers spaced by 4.36 cm. Taking into account the directivity of each speaker and the diraction eects due to the line array, the symmetry of revolution of the cone is studied. Since the loudspeakers are in their linear regime, nonlinear behaviors of the wave are no longer present. However, inverse ltering methods are possible for improving the quality of the signal. We show that it is possible to visualize the spatio-temporal evolution of the pressure eld in planes containing the ring axis using a linear microphone array mounted on a translation robot. Comparisons between experiments and simulations show encouraging results for the following. PACS no. 43.28.We, 43.28.M
