Efficient sensor network based acoustic localization

Sensor networks, constructed from a large number of inexpensive devices can be used to provide accurate and robust acoustic localization services. A consistency-based fusion method, which can be utilized for Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) measurements has recently been proposed. The fusion algorithm is able to find the global optimum with good accuracy, but the location estimator is not optimal. In this paper an enhanced consistency-based fusion is proposed for TDOA localization, with improved performance, as real measurement results show. The performance of the proposed method is close to the Cramer-Rao lower bound, as illustrated by simulation results.