Sound based localization and identification in industrial environments

For a wide range of applications in industry, it is sometimes necessary to perform acoustic source localization. In this paper, a passive sound localization and classification system is designed and implemented. Each sensor consists of a microphone array which is used to detect the direction-of-arrival (DoA) of an acoustic signal. Multiple DoA sensors can be combined to form a wireless sensor network. The system can detect the acoustic signature of power tools and the effectiveness of the system to be used as an early warning system to detect misuse of machinery is demonstrated. It is shown that the system can detect the DoA of an acoustic signal with an overall mean estimation error of 7° and can correctly classify the signal source with a classification rate of 71.5%.