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Introduction
Source Localization and Sound Localization have been topics of great interest in the field
of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) since the 1970s. Sound localization is the method of
processing sound in a way that the listener perceives sound coming from a direction where there
are no physical sources of sound or speakers. This technology can be used in a movie theatre to
simulate a 3 dimensional sound environment around the listener. Source localization is the
inverse problem to sound localization. It involves analyzing sound waves at different points in
space to calculate the position of the sounds source. This paper focuses the techniques used in
the localization of an acoustic source in a three dimensional environment, identifies the
applications of such technology in the industry, and discusses the implementation problems
faced by researchers in the field.
Industry Applications
Industrial applications of source localization are not widespread. Source localization has
been a topic of interest amongst researchers, but the research has not resulted in mass adoption of
products with localizing technology. Most current applications are in the headphones market,
where the headphones would have the capability of processing a movies sound such that the user
feels he is in the movies three dimensional environment [4]. There are many niche products
where source localization will be widely adopted. Source localization will soon be used in video
conferencing to identify which person in the remote location is speaking. It is also being used in
lecture halls to record videos of an on going lecture. Instead of having a human control and focus
the camera constantly on the speaker, the audio/video system can be automated by identifying
the location of the speaker based on localizing his speech and then pointing the camera in the
calculated direction. Such autonomous applications have been proven to be as good as their
human counterparts [5]. Researchers are also analyzing applications in robotics where a mobile
robot could track and follow in real-time multiple moving sources of sound. Such technology
could allow robots to interact with human more naturally [1].
References
[1]
J. Valin and J. Rouat, Robust localization and tracking of simultaneous moving sound
sources using beamforming and particle filtering, Robotics and Autonomous Systems,
vol. 55, no. 3, Mar., pp. 216-228, 2007.
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
H. Wang and P. Chu, Voice source localization for automatic camera pointing system in
videoconferencing, In Proc. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and
Signal Processing 01, 1997, pp. 187-190.
[6]