Diffuseness Estimation-Based SSTP Detection for Multiple Sound Source Localization in Reverberant Environments

This paper proposes a diffuseness estimation-based single-source time–frequency point (SSTP) detection method for multisource direction of arrival (DOA) estimation. According to the composition, time–frequency (TF) points are divided into three types: SSTP, multisource TF, and interference TF. SSTPs and multisource TF points are defined as weak interference time–frequency points (WITPs). An SSTP is a TF point consisting only of the direct component of one sound source, which is beneficial for DOA estimation. Therefore, multisource DOA estimation is transformed into single-source DOA estimation by SSTP detection. Diffuseness estimation is introduced for a sound field microphone array. WITPs are detected by a diffuseness estimation–based detection method. Phase similarity determination is adopted to identify SSTPs from detected WITPs. Multiple sound source localization is completed by searching peaks in the normalized histogram of DOA estimates corresponding to the detected SSTPs. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves the precise detection of SSTPs, and evaluations show that it has superior accuracy of multiple sound source counting and localization in reverberant and noisy environments.