FPGA implementation of a novel far-field sound localization system

Sound localization systems (SLS) identify the direction of a sound source. However, most of approaches focus on near-field identification, i.e. 1~2 m. In this paper we develop a novel algorithm for far-field sound localization based on the average magnitude difference function (AMDF), thereby extending the distance to 5 m. The far-field SLS is implemented on a field programmable gate array (FPGA). Chip area is reduced and compared with other systems, occupying about 188,000 logic gates. In our experiments, performance achieves almost 90% accuracy for detection of sound source direction (with ±10° error).