Inference of acoustic source directivity using environment awareness

Acoustic maps derived from the Generalized Cross-Correlation Phase Transform (GCC-PHAT) computed on the signals acquired by a set of distributed microphones can be effectively used for the localization of active acoustic sources. When the microphone pairs surround a given area with a good angular coverage, directional characteristics of the sources can also be inferred, based on the relative amplitudes of the GCC-PHAT peaks and the geometry of propagation in the given environment. This paper presents a novel method for estimating the radiation pattern of an acoustic source which combines GCC-PHAT observations with accurate descriptors of the environment characteristics, i.e. reverberation time. Experiments on simulated data show that the source emission pattern can be estimated in an effective way under noisy and reverberant conditions.