Real-time sound source localization system based on FPGA

Abstract

This paper presents a real-time sound source localization system based on FPGA (field programmable gate array). The system employs three microphones with different locations and calculates the direction of the sound source using TDOA (time-delay of arrivals). All the functions for the sound source localization are implemented with the use of a dedicated parallel architecture, including acoustic signal capturing, cross correlation, short-term energy and azimuth computation. The proposed system uses two different clocks for achieving real-time performance - low frequency signal capturing clock and high frequency processing clock. The proposed system can be used to intelligent service robots, security and surveillance applications as a result of a FPGA implementation.