title: A theoretical study on the placement of microphone arrays for improving the localization accuracy of a fall.
abstract: Falling is a common health problem for elderly. To address the problem, we are currently developing an acoustic fall detection system, FADE, which automatically detects a fall and reports to the caregiver. Of great importance of the fall detection system is a low false alarm rate that can be achieved by knowing where the acoustic signal comes from. The previous work showed the sound source localization can be determined by using an 8-microphone circular array, but the accuracy varies when placing the array at different positions. To further improve the localization accuracy, a second array can be added. In this paper we investigate the variations of localization accuracy of a fall signal when one or two arrays are placed at different positions in a room. The accuracy is evaluated by the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB). The CRLB aids the determination of the best theoretical placement of one or two arrays in a room for locating the sound source.
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: K C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: Mihail
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Popescu
authors.forename: Marjorie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Skubic
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000162:Acoustics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008962:Models, Theoretical