A clustering approach to multi-source localization in reverberant rooms

Localization of acoustic sources in the presence of reverberation is still a challenging task in audio signal processing. As a matter of fact, commonly adopted models are not adequate to describe real scenarios. Moreover, practical systems should not employ sophisticated and expensive architectures, that require precise synchronization and fast data shuffling among sensors. This work describes a new robust multi-step procedure for speaker localization in reverberant rooms. The proposed approach is based on a disturbed harmonics model of time delays in the frequency domain and employs the well-known ROOT-MUSIC algorithm, after a proper pre-processing of the received signals. Final clustering of raw TDOA estimates gives candidate source positions. Among the appealing features of the proposed approach are the capability of tracking multiple speakers simultaneously and the high accuracy of the closed form TDOA estimator