Introduction

<sidebar>Robotic Sensing: Adaptive Robotic Control for Improved Acoustic Source Localization in 2D Nav</sidebar> The fundamental notion behind acoustic source localization is the concept that the angle of arrival of an incoming sound wave can be determined with a pair of microphones that are placed with a known distance apart from each other. A detailed explanation of this concept can be in found in our Fall 2009 web report. Our project employs two pairs of microphones to estimate two independent angles of arrival of the incoming sound wave. These two estimations can be used to derive an actual position estimation of the sound source by simply solving for the intersection of the two angles of arrival. Our Fall 2009 report contains a further explanation and derivation for this.

Our localization system

The motivation for using LabVIEW was that it offers a number of distinct advantages in the integration of various tasks which a dynamic system would need to run simultaneously in order function effectively. To run an acoustic source localization system in real time, incorporating useful robotic movement of the sensors, requires the integration and synchronization of signal waveform generation, sound output functionality, data acquisition, signal processing, plotting of the source estimation, and constructive commands for robot movement based on the localization, all occurring in parallel with one another.