A low-cost binaural hearing support system for mobile robots.

The ability to quickly obtain a comprehensive picture of the environment is an important prerequisite for the realization of robust and safe autonomous navigation with mobile robots. Due to their comparatively low computational requirements and cost, as well as their ability to provide omnidirectional perception, audio systems can be an excellent complement to more sophisticated or expensive sensing systems such as cameras or lidars. In this paper, we describe the development of a low-cost binaural audio system capable of interpreting the acoustic information present in an environment to assist a lidar system in making decisions that need to be made by a mobile robot. By taking advantage of the robot’s mobility, the system can resolve the uncertainties inherent in consciously choosing two off-the-shelf microphones and effectively realize 360-degree coverage. This opens up new possibilities, for example, to make room monitoring much more reliable.