System and method for computing a location of an acoustic...

Communications – electrical: acoustic wave systems and devices – Distance or direction finding – With beam steering – scanning – or focussing

Reexamination Certificate

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Reexamination Certificate

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06912178

ABSTRACT:
In accordance with the present invention, a system and method for computing a location of an acoustic source is disclosed. The method includes steps of processing a plurality of microphone signals in frequency space to search a plurality of candidate acoustic source locations for a maximum normalized signal energy. The method uses phase-delay look-up tables to efficiently determine phase delays for a given frequency bin number k based upon a candidate source location and a microphone location, thereby reducing system memory requirements. Furthermore, the method compares a maximum signal energy for each frequency bin number k with a threshold energy Et(k) to improve accuracy in locating the acoustic source.

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