Localization of multiple simultaneous sound sources in reverberant conditions using blind source separation methods

In this paper, we address the problem of multiple simultaneous sources localization by means of Blind Source Separation (BSS)-based algorithms. Considering BSS demixing filters as some blind null beamformer and producing an acoustical map from them, source localization can then be achieved by identifying the local minima of this acoustical map. To improve the performance of this method in reverberant environments, we have proposed to replace the demixing filter with one corresponds to only the direct path. This is done by keeping only the largest coefficient in each demixing filter and neglecting the other coefficients. Furthermore, the proposed method reduces the computational complexity. Our experiments demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method in the localization of multiple simultaneous sound sources in reverberant environments.