System for robust 3D speaker tracking using microphone array measurements

A system for three-dimensional passive acoustic speaker localization and tracking using a microphone array is presented and evaluated. Initial speaker position estimates are provided by a time-delay-based localization algorithm. These raw estimates are spatially smoothed by a multiple model adaptive estimator consisting of three extended Kalman filters running in parallel. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated for real data in a common office environment. The reference trajectory of the moving speaker is delivered by visually tracking a color marker on the speaker's forehead by a stereo-camera system. The proposed acoustic source tracker shows robustness and accuracy in a variety of different scenarios.