Part of Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 11 (NIPS 1998)
John Harris, Chiang-Jung Pu, José Príncipe
We describe the first single microphone sound localization system and its inspiration from theories of human monaural sound localiza(cid:173) tion. Reflections and diffractions caused by the external ear (pinna) allow humans to estimate sound source elevations using only one ear. Our single microphone localization model relies on a specially shaped reflecting structure that serves the role of the pinna. Spe(cid:173) cially designed analog VLSI circuitry uses echo-time processing to localize the sound. A CMOS integrated circuit has been designed, fabricated, and successfully demonstrated on actual sounds.