A Method for Wavefront Curvature Ranging of Speech Sources

Abstract

A new approach for estimating the location of a speech source in a reverberant environment is presented. The approach also implements focusing using a linear array of microphones to reduce the effects of reverberation. The algorithm estimates the curvature of the incident wavefront of the source with regard to its images by using an estimated signal-to-inteiference ratio (SIRe) function. The location which maximizes the SIRe function is used to estimate the source location. A delay-and-sum technique is then used to focus on the source in order to reduce the effects of reverberation and noise. Simulation results are presented for a room of size 8 x 6 m and the first 23 planer images of the source. The results show that the new algorithm is effective in locating a speech source and minimizing multipath effects.