A distributed sound source surveillance system using autonomous vehicle network

Due to the physical limitation, single autonomous vehicle cannot afford a large aperture microphone array for high performance sound source localization. Motivated by Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and multiple-base sonar technologies, a distributed sound source localization system prototype is presented in this paper using multiple autonomous vehicles as its mobile platforms. Similar to a typical WSN system, the system includes a base station and multiple sensor nodes. Each node is consisted of a series of sensors, a set of signal acquisition and processing unit, a wireless communication unit and a core MCU as its brain. Adopting TDOA-based direction finding method and LS-based Angle of Arrival localization method, the system operates autonomously and can search/localize the sound source in real time. The optimal sensor deployment technique is also considered which leads to a strategic vehicle control solution. The performance of the system is demonstrated via a series of experiments and the results show that it works well in the designated test field and it can meet the requirements of many application scenarios.