Spatially selective sound acquisition using distributed sensor arrays
Spatially selective sound acquisition using distributed sensor arrays
Spatially selective sound acquisition aims at extracting one or more target sources from a complex sound scene. Directional microphones can extract sources from a certain azimuth angle without respect to the source-microphone distance. In a similar way, sensor arrays can be used to achieve equal or enhanced results.
By placing several directional microphones or separate sensor array setups with a large distance to each other, in a way that their azimuthal pick-up directions intersect at the desired source position, the acoustic intersection between their signals is intendend to contain only sound sources lying within this intersecting focus area. To extract this acoustic content, a simple addition is not sufficient.
Within the scope of this master thesis, a novel sound acquisition algorithm utilizing distributed directional microphones or distributed microphone arrays will be developed and implemented and its performance will be analyzed. The algorithm aims at extracting a target source signal and reducing noise and interference signals. The proposed methods are shown to deliver clearly enhanced results in terms of interference suppression and source dereverberation compared to a single directional microphone or sensor array.