Direction-of-arrival estimation for acoustic signals based on direction-dependent parameter tuning of a bioinspired binaural coupling system

Abstract - Bioinspired methods for sound source localization offer opportunities for resource reduction as well as concurrent performance improvement in contrast to conventional techniques. Usually, sound source localization requires a large number of microphones arranged in irregular geometries, and thus has high resource requirements in terms of space and data processing. Motivated by biology and using digital signal processing methods, an approach that adapts the coupled hearing system of the fly Ormia ochracea with a minimally distant two-microphone array is presented. Despite its physiology, the fly is able to overcome physical limitations in localizing low-frequency sound sources. By exploiting the filtering effect of the coupling system, the direction-of-arrival of the sound is determined with two microphones at an intermediate distance of 0.06 m. For conventional beamforming algorithms, these physical limitations would result in degraded localization performance. In this work, the bioinspired coupling system is analyzed and subsequently parameterized direction-sensitive for different directions of incidence of the sound. For the parameterization, an optimization method is presented which can be adopted for excitation with plane as well as spherical sound wave propagation. Finally, the method was assessed using simulated and measured data. For 90% of the simulated scenarios, the correct direction of incidence could be determined with an accuracy of less than 1 ∘ despite the use of a minimal distant two-microphone array. The experiments with measured data also resulted in a correct determination of the direction of incidence, which qualifies the bioinspired method for practical use in digital hardware systems.