Study of a generalized spherical array beamformer with adjustable binaural reproduction

Michael Jeffet, Boaz Rafaely

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Microphone array processing and beamforming methods are widely used to enhance speech signals in noisy and reverberant environments. Recently, a generalized spherical array beamformer (GSB) was introduced incorporating beamforming with binaural sound reproduction. This GSB improves both the spatial realism and the speech intelligibility in the reproduced acoustic scene. In this paper the limitations and the trade-offs that result from incorporating both beamforming and binaural reproduction in a single array are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. Results show a clear trade-off between binaural reproduction and spatial selectivity performance, such that improving one is only possible at the expense of the other. These results lead to the proposal of the design of an adjustable generalized beamformer, which is suggested as a future research direction with the aim of enabling the GSB to adapt to changing environments.

Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publication2014 4th Joint Workshop on Hands-Free Speech Communication and Microphone Arrays, HSCMA 2014
Pages77-81
Number of pages5
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2014
Event2014 4th Joint Workshop on Hands-Free Speech Communication and Microphone Arrays, HSCMA 2014 - Villers-les-Nancy, France
Duration: 12 May 201414 May 2014

Publication series

Name2014 4th Joint Workshop on Hands-Free Speech Communication and Microphone Arrays, HSCMA 2014

Conference

Conference2014 4th Joint Workshop on Hands-Free Speech Communication and Microphone Arrays, HSCMA 2014
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityVillers-les-Nancy
Period12/05/1414/05/14

Keywords

  • Array processing
  • beamforming
  • binaural sound reproduction
  • spatial release from masking
  • speech intelligibility
  • spherical harmonics
  • spherical microphone arrays

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Networks and Communications

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