Direction Estimation and Tracking of Coherent Sources Using a Single Acoustic Vector Sensor

A single acoustic vector sensor (AVS) cannot be used to find the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of two or more coherent (fully correlated) sources. We have proposed a technique for estimating DOAs (in 2D geometry) of two simultaneous coherent sources using single AVS under the assumption that acoustic sources enter in the field sequentially. The DOA estimation has been investigated with two different configurations of AVS, each consisting of three microphones in a plane. The technique has been also applied in tracking (a) an acoustic source in the presence of stationary interfering coherent source and (b) two coherent sources when the sources are changing their locations alternatively. The experimental environment has been generated using the Finite-Element Method tool viz. COMSOL to corroborate the proposed scheme.