Evaluation of Sparse Acoustic Array Geometries for the Application in Indoor Localization

Angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation technology, with its potential advantages, emerges as an intriguing choice for indoor localization. Notably, it holds the promise of reducing installation costs. In contrast to time-of-flight (ToF)/time-difference-of-arrival (TDoA) based systems, AoA-based approache...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Georg K.J. Fischer, Niklas Thiedecke, Thomas Schaechtle, Andrea Gabbrielli, Fabian Hoflinger, Alexander Stolz, Stefan J. Rupitsch
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2024-01-01
Series:IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10707198/
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation technology, with its potential advantages, emerges as an intriguing choice for indoor localization. Notably, it holds the promise of reducing installation costs. In contrast to time-of-flight (ToF)/time-difference-of-arrival (TDoA) based systems, AoA-based approaches require a reduced number of nodes for effective localization. This characteristic establishes a tradeoff between installation costs and the complexity of hardware and software. Moreover, the appeal of acoustic localization is further heightened by its capacity to provide cost-effective hardware solutions while maintaining a high degree of accuracy. Consequently, acoustic AoA estimation technology stands out as a feasible and compelling option in the field of indoor localization. Sparse arrays additionally have the ability to estimate the direction-of-arrival (DoA) of more sources than available sensors by placing sensors in a specific geometry. In this contribution, we introduce a measurement platform designed to evaluate various sparse array geometries experimentally. The acoustic microphone array comprises 64 microphones arranged in an 8&#x00D7;8 grid, following an uniform rectangular array (URA) configuration, with a grid spacing of 8.255 mm. This configuration achieves a spatial Nyquist frequency of approximately 20.8 kHz in the acoustic domain at room temperature. Notably, the array exhibits a mean spherical error of 1.26<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{\circ }$</tex-math></inline-formula> when excluding higher elevation angles. The platform allows for masking sensors to simulate sparse array configurations. We assess four array geometries through simulations and experimental data, identifying the open-box and nested array geometries as robust candidates. In addition, we demonstrate the array&#x0027;s capability to concurrently estimate the directions of three emitting sources using experimental data, employing waveforms consisting of orthogonal codes.
ISSN:2832-7322