Localization of multiple speakers in the spherical harmonic domain by robust order-aware pseudo-intensity vectors exploiting time-frequency correlation

Multiple sound source localization using pseudo-intensity vector is known sensitive to noise and room reverberation. To deal with the problem, a robust sound localization approach is proposed using pseudo-intensity vector via constructing an order-aware factor of spherical harmonics (OAFSH) by employing signal correlation property in the time-frequency domain. Unlike its existing counterpart, the proposed OAFSH fully takes advantage of the correlation of the eigenbeams that belong to the same source between adjacent time-frequency bins. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed OAFSH performs better than the existing counterpart in suppressing noise and room reverberation. Simulation results demonstrate that the sound source localization accuracy of the proposed approach is 1.3° ~ 1.9° higher than that of the existing approach under the condition of a 10 dB signal to noise ratio and reverberation time of 0.4 ~ 1.0 s. Moreover, the computational complexity of the proposed approach is also reduced by 25%. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed approach is further verified by the real-world experiments in practical room environment.