A Novel Method for Multiple Sound Sources Localization with Low Complexity

Abstract

Sound source localization is essential in many areas such as robotics interaction, teleconferenc- ing, sound extraction and recognition, noise cancellation in vehicles, object location detection, assessment of noise pollution in living spaces, and search and rescue. Inter- action in natural settings requires the detection of differ- ent sources of sounds from the environment. Accurately detecting and differentiating incoming sound directions always attracts attention and has been researched us- ing various methods. However, most of these methods still require complex algorithms or large amounts of calculations, which are accompanied by the cost of hard- ware and system resources. In this paper, we present a novel method and metrics for estimating the direction of multiple sound sources based on a combination of beamforming, time difference of arrival (TDOA), and frequency sparsity. Our new proposals are well-suited for deployment on resource-limited devices, offering re- duced processing complexity, short computation time, and real-time response.