Robust time-delay estimation in highly adverse acoustic environments

This paper describes an algorithm for robust time-delay estimation (TDE) in situations where a large amount of additive noise and reverberation is present. J. Benesty (see Journal Acoust. Soc. of America, vol.107, no.1, p.384-91, 2000) developed an adaptive eigenvalue decomposition algorithm for TDE between two microphones in highly reverberant acoustic environments. We extend that algorithm to highly noisy and reverberant environments, by using a generalized eigenvalue decomposition or by prewhitening the noisy microphone signals. It is shown that time-delays can be robustly estimated for SNRs down to -5 dB.