The design characteristics of an automated positioning system for measuring near-field sound pressure are described. The performance of the system is illustrated from measurements of acoustic intensity in a plane in front of a loudspeaker mounted in a baffle compared with the calculated acoustic-intensity field produced by a point sound source near a hard reflecting plane. The five-degree-of-freedom system allows the acoustic intensity probe to be placed at any point within a 1700 x 1000 x 700-mm space. The three orthogonal components of the acoustic-intensity vector at a measurement point may be calculated.