Detecting multiple, simultaneous talkers through localising speech recorded by ad-hoc microphone arrays

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel approach to detecting multiple, simultaneous talkers in multi-party meetings using localisation of active speech sources recorded with an ad-hoc microphone array. Cues indicating the relative distance between sources and microphones are derived from speech signals and room impulse responses recorded by each of the microphones distributed at unknown locations within a room. Multiple active sources are localised by analysing a surface formed from these cues and derived at different locations within the room. The number of localised active sources per each frame or utterance is then counted to estimate when multiple sources are active. The proposed approach does not require prior information about the number and locations of sources or microphones. Synchronisation between microphones is also not required. A meeting scenario with competing speakers is simulated and results show that simultaneously active sources can be detected with an average accuracy of 75% and the number of active sources counted accurately 65% of the time.

Distributed Microphone Arrays, Emerging Speech and Audio Signal Processing Platforms: A Review

“…This segmentation is specifically important in the context of ad hoc microphone arrays and is the basis for defining discriminative features. The clarity feature is used for sound source localization by ad hoc microphones [37]. Table 2 summarizes the acoustic features applied to signal processing applications.…”

“…Features derived from RIRs, such attenuation [54], and the clarity feature ( 50 ) [37], are also applied for the twodimensional localization of sources.…”