Robust confidence measure for beamformed acoustic beacon for device tracking and localization

An audio capture device, comprising:

• a set of microphones to detect sounds emitted by an audio emission device, wherein each of the sounds corresponds to a modal pattern in a set of modal patterns;
• an orientation determination unit to (1) generate a set of window synthesized impulse responses based on the detected sounds and the set of modal patterns and (2) determine an angle corresponding to the largest window synthesized impulse response in the set of window synthesized impulse responses, wherein the angle represents the location of the audio capture device relative to the audio emission device;
• and
• a verification unit to (1) define a target beam pattern based on the set of modal patterns and (2) determine a confidence level for the set of window synthesized impulse responses based on a comparison between points along the target beam pattern and the set of window synthesized impulse responses.

An article of manufacture, comprising:

• a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium that stores instructions which, when executed by a processor in an audio capture computing device,
• generate a target beam pattern based on a set of modal patterns, wherein the modal patterns correspond to a set of detected sounds emitted by an audio emission device;
• generate a set of window synthesized impulse responses based on the detected sounds and the set of modal patterns;
• determine an angle corresponding to the largest window synthesized impulse response in the set of window synthesized impulse responses, wherein the angle represents the location of the audio capture device relative to the audio emission device;
• and
• determine a confidence level for the set of window synthesized impulse responses and the angle representing the location of the audio capture device relative to the audio emission device based on a comparison between points along the target beam pattern and the set of window synthesized impulse responses.