Acoustic Source Localization

Source Localization is a very well established technique that has a wide range of applications from remote sensing to the Global Positioning System. Sound source localization techniques are used in commercial applications like improving speech quality in hands free telephony, video conferencing to military applications like SONAR, surveillance systems and devices to locate the sources of artillery fire. A method is proposed to localize an acoustic source within a frequency band from 100Hz to 4 KHz in two dimensions using microphone array by calculating the direction of arrival (DOA) of the acoustic signals. Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation of acoustic signals using a set of spatially separated microphones uses the phase information present in signals. For this the time-delays are estimated for each pair of microphones in the array. From the known array geometry and the direction of arrival, the location of source can be obtained.