A DSP Implementation of Source Location Using Microphone Arrays

The design, implementation, and performance of a low-cost, realtime DSP system for source location is discussed. The system consists of an 8-element electret microphone array connected to a Signalogic DSP daughterboard hosted by a PC. The system determines the location of a speaker in the audience in an irregularly shaped auditorium. The auditorium presents a non-ideal acoustical environment; some of the walls are acoustically treated, but there still exists significant reverberation and a large amount of low frequency noise from fans in the ceiling. The source location algorithm is implemented in a two step process: The first step determines time delay of arrival (TDOA) for select microphone pairs. A modified version of the Cross-Power Spectrum Phase Method is used to compute TDOAs and is implemented on the DSP daughterboard. The second step uses the computed TDOAs in a least mean squares gradient descent search algorithm implemented on the PC to compute a location esti..