Acoustic Localization

The demand for accurate location estimation has been increasing in recent years. Existing technologies such as global positioning satellites (GPS), Time-of-Arrival (TOA), and Received Signal Strength (RSS) have induced error, require high computational complexity, and have low accuracy respectively. On the other hand, Time-Difference-of-Arrival (TDOA) can be scaled from acoustic to radio frequency localization, has promising accuracy, and lower computing power requirements than TOA. This research explores the accuracy of the TDOA algorithm in an acoustic application and uses various real-world testing conditions such as indoor and outdoor environments, added background noise, and distinct acoustic characteristics. Increasing localization accuracy is further explored by applying filters and interpolation to the acoustic signal.

Major Advisor: Huaping Liu
Committee: Ted Brekken
Committee: William Warnes