Adaptive Beamforming for Audio Signal Acquisition

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of adaptive beamforming techniques for speech and audio signal acquisition. We review basic concepts of optimum adaptive antenna arrays and show how these methods may be applied to meet the requirements of audio signal processing. In particular, we derive optimum beamformers using time-domain least-squares instead of frequency-domain minimum mean-squares criteria, and, thereby, are not constrained by the commonly used narrow-band and stationarity assumptions. We thus obtain a more general representation of various beamforming aspects relevant to our application. From this, a robust generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) [1] results as an attractive solution for practical audio acquisition systems. Moreover, the general theoretical framework leads to new insights for the GSC behavior in complex practical situations.KeywordsMinimum Mean Square ErrorAudio SignalSpeech EnhancementMicrophone ArrayMinimum Variance Distortionless ResponseThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.