Speaker localization using the direct-path dominance test for arbitrary arrays

Abstract

Speaker localization in reverberant environments is an important and timely challenge in audio signal processing, with new methods recently developed to meet this challenge. One of these methods is the direct-path dominance (DPD) test showing robustness to both reverberation and noise. However, this method has been developed for processing in the spherical harmonics domain and is restricted to microphone arrays with a spherical configuration. In this paper, we propose a new method for extending the DPD test approach to arrays with arbitrary configuration, by removing the frequency dependence of the steering matrices using local focusing transformations to support frequency-smoothing and robustness to reverberation. A simulation study for evaluating the performance of the method for a binaural array is presented, validating the theoretical developments.