Acoustic array tracking performance under moderately complex environmental conditions

The direction-of-arrival (DOA) tracking performance of microphone arrays having aperture sizes ranging from 0.3 to 34 m is examined for an experiment involving a vehicle traversing a moderately complex terrain. A segment of the vehicle’s path was obscured behind a small, 6.7-m high, vegetated hill. The combination of the hill and upwind propagation created an acoustic shadow during this segment. DOA tracks were estimated with a minimum-variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer operating in two frequency bands: 25-60 Hz and 60-105 Hz. In the lower frequency band, array sizes between 1 and 8 m gave the best results, with DOA errors between 2° and 5°. Furthermore, in this band shadowing from the hill and wind refraction had a minimal affect on DOA error. In the higher frequency band, the acoustic shadow zone produced a distinct interval of high DOA error, with the 8-m array giving the best overall performance. Modeling of the beamforming process shows that high DOA errors corresponded to MVDR wavenumber patterns that are degraded by distortions to the propagating wavefronts. Our experimental results indicate that small acoustic arrays with apertures less than 0.3 m, operating at frequencies above 100 Hz, should be considered line of sight sensors. Given the moderate complexity of the test conditions, it is anticipated that the observed effects are likely to be present in most attempts to localize outdoor sound sources.