Speech enhancement using linearly constrained adaptive constant directivity beam-formers

Abstract

This paper aims to extend previous work on constant directivity beam-formers (CDBs), for the case of multiple desired speech sources, by designing a linearly constrained adaptive CDB (LCA-CDB) which preserves the beam-pattern in multiple look directions. Also, the proposed LCA-CDB, adaptively, minimizes the transient noise power in the output of the beam-former, and furthermore, produces some controlled nulls (controlled in both amplitude and angle) on the beam-pattern. This strengthens the system in removing permanent directional noises and producing a frequency-invariant beam-pattern with multiple main-lobes and controlled nulls in arbitrary frequency bands. Through simulating the system and the acoustical situations, the authors have tried to demonstrate the capability of the proposed method in enhancement of broadband and telephony speech in the presence of various noise sources (transient noise, permanent noise and uncorrelated white Gaussian noise). The simulation results obtained in this study confirm the efficiency of the proposed method in suppression of environmental noises.