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PERCEPTIONCURRENT2026-06-10

Fast-SDE: Efficient Single-Microphone Sound Source Distance Estimation in Reverberant Environments

Jiang Wang, Runwu Shi, Yaozhong Kang, Benjamin Yen, Takeshi Ashizawa, Kazuhiro Nakadai

This lets you build robots that understand how far away a speaking person is using just one microphone, even in noisy rooms—without expensive microphone arrays or hardware calibration. The lightweight model runs on resource-constrained Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. platforms, enabling more natural human-robot interaction by optimizing interaction distance automatically.

THE PROBLEM

This paper focuses on Perception & SensingPerceptionThe process of turning raw sensor data into useful understanding of the world.. This lets you build robots that understand how far away a speaking person is using just one microphone, even in noisy rooms—without expensive microphone arrays or hardware calibration. The lightweight model runs on resource-constrained Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. platforms, enabling more natural human-robot interaction by optimizing interaction distance automatically. Read the paper by tracking the Core ConceptsTaskThe job the robot is supposed to complete, such as pick-and-place, navigation, or drawer opening. definition, the Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. or data assumptions, and the evidence that supports the claimed improvement.

HOW IT WORKS

1

Task framing

The paper frames the work as Perception & SensingPerceptionThe process of turning raw sensor data into useful understanding of the world.. Start here because it defines what success means and which assumptions the rest of the method inherits.

2

Core method

This lets you build robots that understand how far away a speaking person is using just one microphone, even in noisy rooms—without expensive microphone arrays or hardware calibration. The lightweight model runs on resource-constrained Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. platforms, enabling more natural human-robot interaction by optimizing interaction distance automatically. When reading the method section, identify the inputs, the learned or engineered representation, and the Core ConceptsActionA command the robot sends to its motors, controller, or low-level system. or prediction produced by the system.

3

Data and supervision

For robotics work, the data story is part of the method: check whether the system depends on Imitation & Reinforcement LearningTeleoperation (teleop)A human remotely controlling the robot, often to collect demonstrations., Simulation & Sim-to-RealSimulationA virtual environment where robots can be trained or tested., internet video, human labels, or Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. rollouts.

4

Evaluation evidence

The paper should be judged through its Simulation & Sim-to-RealEvaluationMeasuring how well a robot system performs. protocol: what data is used, what Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. or simulator is tested, and which Evaluation & ResearchBaselineA reference method used for comparison. comparisons support the claim. Look for the gap between the headline result and the Simulation & Sim-to-RealDeploymentPutting the trained system on a real robot. setting you would actually care about.

FIGURES

KEY RESULTS

Main contributionConceptual contribution

This lets you build robots that understand how far away a speaking person is using just one microphone, even in noisy rooms—without expensive microphone arrays or hardware calibration. The lightweight model runs on resource-constrained Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. platforms, enabling more natural human-robot interaction by optimizing interaction distance automatically.

WHY DEVELOPERS SHOULD CARE

This lets you build robots that understand how far away a speaking person is using just one microphone, even in noisy rooms—without expensive microphone arrays or hardware calibration. The lightweight model runs on resource-constrained Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. platforms, enabling more natural human-robot interaction by optimizing interaction distance automatically.

LIMITATIONS

The main limitation to check is whether the claimed behavior holds outside the paper's reported setup. That means testing across different Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. embodiments, scenes, objects, and data distributions.

WHAT COMES NEXT

The practical next step is independent reproduction with clear baselines, ablations, and stress tests. For a developer, the useful follow-up is to map the paper's Perception & SensingPerceptionThe process of turning raw sensor data into useful understanding of the world. assumptions onto a concrete Core ConceptsRobotA physical system with sensors and actuators that can observe the world and take actions. stack, then test the smallest version of the method that could run end to end.

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