A microphone position calibration method based on combination of acoustic energy decay model and TDOA for distributed microphone array

The geometrical structure and size of a distributed microphone array are usually irregular, and need to be estimated in many applications. A microphone position calibration method based on combination of acoustic energy decay model and time difference of arrival for distributed microphone arrays is proposed in this paper. The method utilizes the acoustic energy decay model to estimate the coarse distance between the microphone and the sound source, and then applies time difference of arrival to search for the accurate distance within a certain range near the coarse distance. Finally, the minimum mean square error estimation method is employed to determine the position of the microphone. The proposed method has a high positioning accuracy, stable calibration performance and low computational complexity. Simulation results reveal the validity of the proposed method at a theoretical level. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.