Discriminative Binaural Sound Localization

Time difference of arrival (TDOA) is commonly used to estimate the azimuth of a source in a microphone array. The most common methods to estimate TDOA are based on finding extrema in generalized cross-correlation waveforms. In this paper we apply microphone array techniques to a manikin head. By considering the entire cross-correlation waveform we achieve azimuth prediction accuracy that exceeds extrema locating methods. We do so by quantizing the azimuthal angle and treating the prediction problem as a multiclass categorization task. We demonstrate the merits of our approach by evaluating the various approaches on Sony's AIBO robot.