Locating and tracking acoustic sources with microphone arrays

A computer implemented method for constructing a location model, the location model for locating and tracking sources of acoustic signals, comprising a processor for performing steps of the method, comprising the steps of:

• acquiring, with an array of microphones placed at unknown positions in an environment, an acoustic training signal from an acoustic training source at an unknown location in the environment, each microphone acquiring one acoustic training signal;
• extracting, from each acoustic training signal, relative acoustic features;
• constructing a location model, in which a mean μ and variance σ2 of the location model is determined using an expectation-maximization process;
• and
• training the location model with the relative acoustic features.