Time-Frequency-Bin-Wise Beamformer Selection and Masking for Speech Enhancement in Underdetermined Noisy Scenarios

Abstract

In this paper, we present a speech enhancement method using two microphones for underdetermined situations. A conventional speech enhancement method for underdetermined situations is time-frequency masking, where speech is enhanced by multiplying zero or one to each time-frequency component appropriately. Extending this method, we switch multiple preconstructed beamformers at each time-frequency bin, each of which suppresses a particular interferer. This method can suppress an interferer even when both the target and an interferer are simultaneously active at a given time-frequency bin. As a switching criterion, selection of minimum value of the outputs of the all beamformers at each time-frequency bin is investigated. Additionally, another method using direction of arrival estimation is also investigated. In experiments, we confirmed that the proposed methods were superior to conventional time-frequency masking and fixed beamforming in the performance of speech enhancement.