Cumulative-Sum-Based Localization of Sound Events in Low-Cost Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks

Wireless acoustic sensor networks (WASNs) are known for their potential applications in multiple areas, such as audio-based surveillance, binaural hearing aids or advanced acoustic monitoring. The knowledge of the spatial position of a source of interest is usually a requirement for many of these applications. Therefore, source localization is an important problem to be addressed in WASNs. Unfortunately, most localization algorithms need costly signal processing stages that prevent them from being implemented in low-cost sensor networks, requiring additional modules for signal acquisition and processing. This paper presents a low-complexity method for acoustic event detection and localization considering a change detection statistical framework. Two possible implementation approaches based on the efficient cumulative sum (CUSUM) algorithm are presented and discussed. Results from simulations and a real deployment show that the proposed techniques can be easily implemented in low-cost sensor networks, providing good localization accuracy and making good use of the available node resources.