Sparse Localization of Harmonic Audio Sources

Abstract:
In this paper, we propose a novel method for estimating the locations of near- and/or far-field harmonic audio sources impinging on an arbitrary, but calibrated, sensor array. Using a joint pitch and location estimation formed in two steps, we first estimate the fundamental frequencies and complex amplitudes under a sinusoidal model assumption, whereafter the location of each source is found by utilizing both the difference in phase and the relative attenuation of the magnitude estimates. As audio recordings often consist of multi-pitch signals exhibiting some degree of reverberation, where both the number of pitches and the source locations are unknown, we propose to use sparse heuristics to avoid the necessity of detailed a priori assumptions on the spectral and spatial model orders. The method’s performance is evaluated using both simulated and measured audio data, with the former showing that the proposed method achieves near-optimal performance, whereas the latter confirms the method’s feasibility when used with real recordings.