Spotforming using distributed microphone arrays

Abstract

Extracting sounds that originate from a specific location, while reducing noise and interferers is required in many hands-free communications systems. We propose a spotforming approach that uses distributed microphone arrays and aims at extracting sounds that originate from a pre-defined spot of interest (SOI), while reducing background noise and sounds that originate from outside the SOI. The spotformer is realized as a linear spatial filter, which is based on the signal statistics of sounds from the SOI, the signal statistics of sounds outside the SOI and the background noise signal statistics. The required signal statistics are estimated from the microphone signals, while taking into account the uncertainty in the location estimates of the desired and the interfering sound sources. The applicability of the method is demonstrated by simulations and the quality of the extracted signal is evaluated in different scenarios.