Diffused sensing for sharp directivity microphone array

We propose a method for achieving sharp directivity by sensing signals in a diffuse acoustic field. Directivity control based on a beamforming method has been studied to make it possible to extract the waveform and location of an identified target source even if there are many noise sources. Sharp directivity can be achieved by minimizing the output noise power of a beamforming filter. However, it is difficult to minimize the output noise power over a broad frequency ranges. Our approach for minimizing the output noise power is to control the spatial properties of the transfer functions and the spatial correlation matrix, by using a reflector that surrounds a microphone array. We investigated the relationships between the output noise power and the structure of the spatial correlation matrix and found that it was possible to minimize the output noise power by sensing diffuse acoustic signals and by designing filters taking the diffuseness of the acoustic field into consideration. In experiments, we observed diffusely reflected signals by placing a truncated-octahedral reflector near a spherical microphone array. We designed filters by using measured transfer functions and confirmed that the proposed method was effective for reducing the output noise power and forming a sharp directivity beamforming filter.