Azimuthal sound localisation with electronic lateral superior olive

Abstract

Since the lateral superior olive (LSO) is the first nucleus in the auditory pathway where binaural inputs converge, it is thought to be involved in azimuthal localization of sounds by calculating the interaural level difference (ILD). The electronic LSO can be used for azimuthal localization in robotics. Thus, in this paper we demonstrate the design, fabrication and test results from a silicon chip which performs azimuthal localization based on the Reed and Blum’s model of the population response of the LSO in brain.