A robust time difference of arrival estimator in reverberant environments

This paper proposes a robust generalized cross correlation (GCC)-based time difference of arrival (TDOA) estimator in reverberant and noisy environments. Under the assumption that the phase of cross channel power spectrum should be linear in a normal single source environment, the effect of reverberation to cross power spectrum is directly reduced by a recursive estimation method. An adaptive smoothing process is also designed to make the system more robust. Simulation results with a two-channel microphone system verify that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the accuracy of TDOA by enhancing phase linearity in various reverberant environments. Also, the reliability of proposed system is confirmed by the experiments performed in additional background noise conditions. Finally, we confirm the superiority of the proposed algorithm from the results of real room experiments.