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Building ears for robots: Sound localization and separation

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Abstract

This paper describes our research on bio-mimetic robot audition. Among the many binaural and monaural sound localization cues in the human auditory system, the interaural time difference cue is selected as it can easily be obtained by omnidirectional microphones. We have used a three-microphone system to remove the anterior-posterior ambiguity which occurs in two-microphone (or ear) systems. The echo-avoidance model of the precedence effect is used to cope with the echoes and reverberations of real environments. We mimicked the cocktail party effect by perceptual grouping of continuous components according to the spatial information obtained by the sound localization method. A wheel-based mobile robot equipped with an auditory system was developed. The auditory system has two sound processing parts. One is a DSP-based realtime system; the other is an off-line system composed of remote computers. Experiments of localizing and separating multiple sound sources and robot navigation were conducted to demonstrate the system's ability and potential applications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bio-Mimetic Control Research Center, The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), 2271-130 Anagahora, Shimoshidami, Moriyama-ku, 463, Nagoya, Japan

    Jie Huang

  2. Department of Information Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, 464-01, Nagoya, Japan

    Noboru Ohnishi

  3. Faculty of Science and Technology, Meijo University, 1-501, Shiogamaguchi, Tenpaku-ku, 468, Nagoya, Japan

    Noboru Sugie

Authors
  1. Jie Huang
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  2. Noboru Ohnishi
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  3. Noboru Sugie
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Correspondence to Jie Huang.

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Huang, J., Ohnishi, N. & Sugie, N. Building ears for robots: Sound localization and separation. Artificial Life and Robotics 1, 157–163 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02471133

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02471133

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