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15, 2008
I. INTRODUCTION
many source-location determinations using many sets of microphones. If a set is to be four or five microphones, this task is
better suited for a two-stage algorithm for computational reasons. Also, the accuracy of a one-stage locator degrades seriously if the number of microphones is small.
Given a set of TDOAs from a small set of microphones, the
second stage of a two-stage algorithm determines the best pointsource location in the focal volume of the room. For a single
TDOA, the three-dimensional contour whose points satisfy that
TDOA value is a hyperboloid. The earliest methods we found
were those that proposed solving a system of intersecting hyperboloids [2], [6], [7]. Other early work used a spherical method
[8], [9]. Ensuing work developed the method of linear intersection in which conic approximations to the asymptotes of the
hyperboloids were used but only for four microphones whose diagonals were orthogonal and bisecting [10]. Another quadratic
method was proposed [11], which started from the same initial equation used in this letter. It always produces two solutions and, occasionally, they are imaginary. Recently, an article
with a similar linear closed-form algorithm was published by
Militello and Buenafuente [14]. Their result was derived from a
physics perspective, while our derivation is from an engineering
perspective and is somewhat simpler. In this letter, we also test
the method using real data in three dimensions with 448 microphones in a noisy environment.
We fully derive a closed-form, linear solution to the problem
of determining a source-location point from a small set of
TDOAs for a near-field situation (the GS method). We show
its stability, computational advantage, and simplicity. We then
compare its sensitivity to noise in the TDOA estimations to two
other methods. Real data are used to compare GS to two other
real-time, implemented location-determination algorithms.
II. BASIC ALGORITHM DERIVATION
be located at point
.
Let microphone
. Let be the speed of
Let the source be at
be the number of non-reference microphones in the
sound,
microphone array, and
be the number of reference micrototal microphones in the array.
phones; thus, there are
For the proof of the basic algorithm, we assume a single refer, microphone 0. Then we define the distance from
ence
the source to microphone as
. The TDOA that we derive
, for microphone
relative to a
from the data,
referent microphone 0 is
(1)
(2)
One might note that there are some useful arrangements of microphones for which the matrix is singular. The most notable
of these might be a line of microphones with uniform spacing.
As some of these configurations were popular in earlier microphone arrays, this might be the reason why we had not been able
to find this algorithm in earlier literature. However, for microphones with random spacing, for example, the matrix is virtually
always nonsingular.
III. EXTENSION OF THE ALGORITHM
There are two generalizations of the basic algorithm that may
be useful. The first is that the number of non-reference microphones, , need not be restricted to four, and the second is that
the number of referents, , need not be restricted to one. For the
case of more microphones we go to matrix notation letting
(5)
and expanded again with some cancellation of the squared
source-location terms and grouping
(13)
(6)
The left side may also be rewritten using (3) as
(7)
(14)
or
(8)
Thus
Equating both sides
(15)
(9)
(16)
(10)
is transpose
(12)
(18)
If the matrix in (12) is not singular, then the Cartesian coordinates for the point source and the distance from it to the referent
are solved simultaneously by solving the linear system of (12).
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(19)
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TABLE I
COMPARISON OF GS RESULTS TO SRP-PHAT AND LEMSalg
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