Silicon cochlea and its adaptation to spatial localisation

Abstract

The silicon cochlea offers an interesting approach to implementing a hardware system for use in spatial localisation of a sound source. For such an application, knowledge of the different ways in which the cochlea has been implemented in silicon, together with the techniques necessary for sound localisation is essential. This review looks at how the auditory pathway has been modelled in silicon and how these models correspond to biological counterparts. The various filtering techniques that have been employed to implement the silicon cochlea are described and contrasted. Then, sound localisation techniques are outlined and VLSI implementations adapting the silicon cochlea for sound localisation applications are presented.