Implementation of an acoustic localization algorithm for video camera steering

Advances in wireless networking and sensor network design open new prospective in performing demanding collaborative sensing and signal processing. This project was motivated by the ambitious plan of designing and implementing acoustic applications in low-cost distributed wireless sensor networks. As first step, we considered the problem of acoustic localization through a set of distributed sensors. Acoustic localization has been extensively studied for microphone arrays since it has several practical interests, e.g. video surveillance, video conferencing, home and military applications. In this report, we first introduce a classic mathematical model for the propagation of wideband acoustic sources in a reverberant environment. Then we review two traditional approaches for acoustic localization, based on the maximum-likelihood and the cross-correlation methods. Finally, we describe the implementation of a Windows-based wireless networked acoustic sensor testbed used for video camera steering.