Wideband Direction-Of-Arrival Estimation Using Microphone Arrays
Macarena Varela, Wulf-Dieter Wirth, Marc Oispuu · 2023
Acoustic direction estimation for outdoor source localization, such as impulsive sounds and drones, holds significant importance in applications related to search-and-rescue, surveillance, and security. To achieve this goal, microphone arrays, in combination with signal processing methods such as beamforming and detection, can be employed. The choice of beamforming technique can significantly impact the estimated direction of arrival (DOA) of sound events, e.g. due to different levels of sidelobes in the directivity pattern. Hence, this paper introduces a novel coherent broadband beamforming method and compares it to the well-established delay-and-sum beamformer. Both approaches are applied to experimental field data collected in free-field conditions, with a focus on drone rotor noise.