Localization of sound sources by means of unidirectional microphones

This paper describes the results of a new approach devoted to the localization of ground borne acoustic sources. It is demonstrated that an array made of at least three unidirectional microphones can be exploited to identify the position of the source. Sound features extracted either in the time domain or in the frequency domain are used to localize the direction of the incoming sound. This information is then fed into a semi-analytical algorithm aimed at identifying the source location. The novelty of the method presented here consists in the use of unidirectional microphones rather than omnidirectional microphones and in the ability to extract the sound direction by considering features like sound amplitude rather than the time of arrival. Experimental tests have been undertaken in a closed environment and have demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed approach. It is believed that this method may pave the road toward a new generation of reduced-size sound detectors and localizers, and future work is described in the conclusions.