Moving Sound Source Localization in 3-D Space Using Time Delay and Intensity Ratio-Based Analytical Approaches

Moving sound source localization and tracking (MSSLT) has numerous applications in the military, machinery fault localization, hearing aids, teleconferencing, and robotics. However, MSSLT is extremely challenging due to the Doppler effect, which alters the frequency and amplitude of the received source signal. Mitigating this effect requires prerequisite information of the source’s trajectory, speed, initial position, and spectrum. In this article, we propose two analytical MSSLT techniques, one based on time-delay intensity ratio and another based on time difference of arrival (TDOA) that do not require any prerequisite information about source and utilize just six and five microphones, respectively. The techniques are validated through extensive simulations and real-life experiments under diverse conditions. Time delay and intensity ratio (TD-IR) accurately tracks and localizes moving sources in unrestricted search space but with low-speed conditions (up to 15 m/s), whereas TDOA has restricted source search space but performs significantly better than TD-IR and is shown to work until 67-m/s source speeds.