Broadband Microphone Arrays for Speech Acquisition
A microphone array provides an effective means of hands-free speech acquisition, finding application in large-room videoconferencing, desktop teleconferencing, and hands-free telephones. Unlike a single omni-directional microphone, the array provides high spatial directivity, allowing it to attenuate room reverberation and other unwanted noise. In this paper, we give an overview of the techniques available for speech acquisition using microphone arrays. In particular we will focus on methods of frequency-invariant beamforming, in which the array maintains the same spatial response over a wide frequency range. Corresponding Author: Darren Ward Room 2C-545 Bell Labs 600 Mountain Ave Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA Phone: +1-908-582-5601 Fax: +1-908-582-7308 Email: dbward@research.bell-labs.com