Assessment of Sound Source Tracking Using Multiple Drones Equipped with Multiple Microphone Arrays.

Area of Science:

• Acoustics
• Robotics
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Drone audition is crucial for search and rescue in disaster zones.
• Sound source tracking is an essential drone audition technique.
• Existing methods lack comprehensive evaluation across varying distances and signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs).

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate sound source tracking methods for drone audition.
• To assess performance against different source distances and SNRs.
• To compare location distribution estimation with directional estimation techniques.

Main Methods:

• Numerical simulation of sound source tracking.
• Analysis of tracking performance based on source distance.
• Evaluation of performance across a range of SNRs.

Main Results:

• Tracking performance is significantly affected by source distance and SNR.
• Location distribution estimation demonstrates robustness against increasing source distance.
• Directional estimation methods show greater robustness against decreasing SNR.

Conclusions:

• Performance evaluation against distance and SNR is critical for drone audition.
• Location distribution estimation is suitable for tracking distant sound sources.
• Directional estimation is preferable in low-SNR environments typical of drone operations.