Pegasus Paper 94 – 9 AudioSourceLocation

Pegasus, ESPRIT BRA 6865, is a project of the University of Cambridge and the University of Twente. The project is aimed at the design of an operating systems architecture for scalable distributed multimedia systems and the development of a validating prototype, design and implementation of a distributed complex-object service and a global name service, mechanisms for the creation, communication, and rendering of fully digital multimedia documents in real time and in a distributed fashion (with support for full-screen digital motion video and digital hi-fi stereophonic sound), and the design and implementation of an application for the system — a digital TV director. Abstract An algorithm is presented for location of audio sources using a minimal amount of resources. The audio source location is based on time-delay estimation, which is performed by a two-stage algorithm. The algorithm uses general human speech properties and straightforward heuristics on human speaker behaviour to acquire accurate and efficient estimation of delays. The first stage of the algorithm makes wide-range time-delay estimation feasible at limited accuracy, while the second stage enables accurate time-delay estimation within a limited range. Finally, the expected performance of the algorithm and its applicability to the audio source location problem is discussed.