Real time humanoid sound source localization and tracking in a highly reverberant environment

An algorithm for real time humanoid sound localization and tracking using only two microphones in a highly reverberant environment is proposed. Several recently developed 3D humanoid sound localization algorithms require the environment to be anechoic. Also, the resolution of front-back ambiguity problem during sound localization requires the knowledge about the reference signals. Using HRTF (head related transfer functions) based sound localization together with extended Kalman filtering, we are able to accurately track moving sound sources in real time in a highly reverberant environment. This algorithm uses only two microphones and requires no prior knowledge of the reference signals.