Acoustical Direction Finding

using a Bayesian Regularized

Multilayer Perceptron Artificial
Neural Networks on a Tri-Axial
Velocity Sensor

*Dr. C. J. Nnonyelu, †Z. N. Morris, and †Dr. C.-C. L. Cheung

*Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

†Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
1
 Outline of Presentation
▸ Autonomous Robots
▸ The tri-axial velocity sensor.
▸ Literature review.
▸ Methodology.
▸ Network Training
▸ Results and discussion.
▸ Conclusion.

2
 Autonomous Robots
Features of an Autonomous Robot
▸ Deal with its environment on its own.
▸ Work for extended periods of time
without human intervention.
▸ Often have sophisticated features
that can help them to understand
their physical environment. NASA JPL RoboSimian

Features of the auditory system of a search-and-rescue robot

▸ Sound source localization technology to estimate the
direction from which the sound emanates.*
▸ Sound source separation technology to isolate a sound
source from many other sources.
▸ Automatic speech recognition technology to extract human
voice from background noise.
3

According to researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology

 The Tri-axial Velocity Sensor
▸ Comprises three uni-axial velocity
sensors (which have a figure-8 gain
response).
▸ Measures the acoustic particle
velocity vector. A tri-axial velocity sensor
▸ Has an array manifold:

▸ Array manifold is independent of

source frequency.
▸ Physically compact, hence versatile A soldier fitted with an acoustic
vector sensor.
for mobile applications.
4
 Literature review
Machine Learning in Direction finding
▸ Used mostly multilayered perceptron or radial basis functions.
▸ Old slow supervised training algorithm such as backpropagation
(with or without momentum).
▸ Phased sensor array (uniform circular, L-shaped, uniform linear
array, etc.) of isotropic sensors were used which increases the
complexity of the signal processing.
▸ Phased array also increased the number of the network’s input as
its outputs and complex.
▸ No allowance was made for the uncorrelated noise assumption of
the received data.
▸ Used the autocorrelation matrix of the received data (in part or in
full) as the neural network’s input.

5
 Literature review cont’d
How proposed system improves the concept

▸ Array manifold of tri-axial velocity sensor is independent of

source frequency, therefore, reducing the complexity of the signal
processing.

▸ The eigen-decomposition of the received data’s autocorrelation

matrix reduces the 3 by 3 matrix to a vector of length 3.

▸ Tri-axial velocity sensor outputs real values, therefore, input of

the neural network is reduced as there are no imaginary parts to
consider.

▸ The Bayesian regularization makes allowance for the uncorrelated

noise assumption by choosing the best model.

6
 Methodology
Summary of the algorithm

Estimate Normalize the

Eigen
Autocovariance estimated
decomposition
Matrix manifold

▸ Estimate the 3 by 3 autocovariance matrix 𝐑 𝑧 using 𝑃

time snapshots (3 by 𝑃) of 𝐳 𝑝 for a given direction.
▸ Obtain the 3 by 1 principal eigenvector of 𝐑 𝑧 .
▸ Normalize the principal eigenvector by its 2-norm as 𝐱 𝑖 . Trained BR-MLP

▸ The normalized eigenvector 𝐱 𝑖 is used as input of the

trained BR-MLP.
▸ And the corresponding direction of arrival used as the
network’s target output.

7
 Methodology cont’d
Data model and signal processing
Incident signal
▸ The tri-axial velocity sensor outputs

•
Array manifold • Additive noise
• Spatiotemporally
uncorrelated.
▸ The sample autocovariance matrix

where
8
 Methodology cont’d
Data model and signal processing cont’d

▸ Estimate the array manifold as the principal eigenvector

such that Unknown constant

Principal eigenvalue

▸ Normalize the estimated array manifold by its Euclidean norm

since
9
 Methodology cont’d
Network Training

▸ The vector 𝐱 𝑖 forms an instance of the network’s input while the

corresponding direction of arrival forms the network’s
target output.

Bayesian Regularized
Multilayered Perceptron

▸ Training input is a collection for different 𝐱 𝑖 for the angle range

each in step of 1° .
10
 Network Training
Signal and Network Parameters

Signal Parameters Network Parameters

▸ Signal’s frequency = 0.25. Parameters Values
▸ Signal’s phase = 0.25𝜋. Maximum no. of Epochs 1000
▸ Number of time samples = 200. Learning rate, μ 0.005
▸ Signal-to-noise ratio = 10 dB. Learning rate decrement 0.01
▸ Total data = 312 = 961. Learning rate increment 10
▸ % of training samples = 15%. Maximum learning rate 1 × 1010
Minimum gradient 1 × 10−7

F. Burden and D. Winkler, Bayesian Regularization of Neural

Networks. In: Artificial Neural Networks. Methods in Molecular
11
Biology™, vol 458. Humana Press, 2008.
 Results and discussion
Training for the optimum number of hidden neurons

(a) SNR = 0 dB. (b) SNR = 10 dB.

Plots of RMSE versus the number of hidden nodes.

12
 Results and discussion
Testing Trained Network

▸ Network was trained with

data of SNR = 10 dB.
▸ The network is tested with
direction of arrival not
included in the training set.
▸ In addition, the SNR of the
data at these unfamiliar
directions-of-arrival were
varied from 10 dB to 50 dB.
▸ RMSE decreases with
increasing SNR.
Plot of RMSE versus SNR of trained network.

13
 Results and discussion
Testing the Robustness of the Bayesian Regularized MLP

▸ Network was trained with

data of SNR = 10 dB.
▸ The network is tested with
direction of arrival not
included in the training set.
▸ In addition, the SNR of the
data at these unfamiliar
directions-of-arrival were
varied from 0 dB to 30 dB.
▸ Performance decreases as
expected with SNR.
Plot of RMSE versus SNR of trained network.

14
 Summary
▸ Using the Tri-axial velocity sensor reduces the input dimension
of the ANN.

▸ This device is small/portable thereby does not affect the agility

of the robot.

▸ The Bayesian regularized network has been shown to be robust

to certain degree for noisy signal.

▸ Further work may include expanding the direction of arrival

angular range, may be by a two-stage estimation.

▸ Practical implementation of the proposed scheme will be

carried out in the future.

15
 THANK YOU

16