A robust source localization algorithm applied to acoustic sensor network

The problem of source localization using distributed acoustic sensor networks is considered in this paper. The acoustic sensors detect and estimate the time of arrival (TOA) of the acoustic transient emitted from a source of interest. The estimated TOA estimates are then transmitted to a base station for collaborative source localization. In realistic scenarios, a subset of the TOA's could typically be erroneous owing to various detrimental factors. The standard least squares-based methods totally fail in presence of even only one outlier or erroneous TOA. By modeling the TOA estimation error as Cauchy-Lorentz distribution, a robust source localization algorithm is derived. Numerical experiments are provided to show the robustness and accuracy of localization of the proposed algorithm.