Evaluation of generalized cross-correlation methods for direction of arrival estimation using two microphones in real environments

The localization of sound sources, and particularly speech, has a numerous number of applications to the industry. This has motivated a continuous effort in developing robust direction-of-arrival detection algorithms, in order to overcome the limitations imposed by real scenarios, such as multiple reflections and undesirable noise sources. Time difference of arrival-based methods, and particularly, generalized cross-correlation approaches have been widely investigated in acoustic signal processing, but there is considerable lack in the technical literature about their evaluation in real environments when only two microphones are used. In this work, four generalized cross-correlation methods for localization of speech sources with two microphones have been analyzed in different real scenarios with a stationary noise source. Furthermore, these scenarios have been acoustically characterized, in order to relate the behavior of these cross-correlation methods with the acoustic properties of noisy scenarios. The scope of this study is not only to assess the accuracy and reliability of a set of well-known localization algorithms, but also to determine how the different acoustic properties of the room under analysis have a determinant influence in the final results, by incorporating in the analysis additional factors to the reverberation time and signal-to-noise ratio. Results of this study have outlined the influence of the acoustic properties analysed in the performance of these methods. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.