Analyses for Localization Steve Rogers Institute for Scientific Research 5 June 2006
Introduction Cross-correlation based time delay estimates may be used for calculating the distance of an acoustic source from spatially separated acoustic sensors. Several techniques are available, including generalized correlation, maximum likelihood (ml), and filter residual analyses. Generalized correlation based methods are very common and several related techniques will be explained in this study. The ml method of distance estimation is based on the estimated time delay using generalized cross-correlation (GCC) estimation1-6. Filter residual analyses methods are developed by using a high-pass filter to generate an output residual. This residual generally contains the information about the excitation source. The GCC between signals generated by any pair of acoustic sensors can be computed using an inverse-discrete Fourier transform on the cross power spectral density of the two signals. The matlab code for a typical GCC operation is shown below. The ‘W’ term is a filter which may be derived in a multitude of ways. Eight approaches are developed and compared in this study. Four major steps are involved in computing the GCC: 1) a cross power spectral density (XPSD) Pxy is calculated, 2) filter XPSD to get R, 3) compute inverse Fourier transform G to return to the time domain, and 4) normalize G. In order to calculate the relative distance from the acoustic sensor pair, we must first calculate the relative time delay. The time related to the GCC calculated is first computed as shown below. The time domain resolution is first calculated based on the sampling rate Fs and fft data length N. The time delay tau then is averaged over the entire sample length. The relative distance dist is computed knowing the velocity of the acoustic wave in the media (for air it is ~ 12,000 in/sec). The relative distance for each pair of sensors may be used for localization of an acoustic source for n sensors. The number of combinations of sensors resulting from an array of n sensors7 is: