• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.811-816
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• 2019

This paper first proposes a technique to separate clean speech signals and mixed noise signals by using an independent vector analysis algorithm of frequency band for 4 channel speech source signals with a noise. An improved output speech signal from the proposed independent vector analysis algorithm is obtained by using the cross-correlation between the signal outputs from the frequency domain delay-sum beamforming and the output signals separated from the proposed independent vector analysis algorithm. In the experiments, the proposed algorithm improves the maximum SNRs of 10.90dB and the segmental SNRs of 10.02dB compared with the frequency domain delay-sum beamforming algorithm for the input mixed noise speeches with 0dB and -5dB SNRs including white noise, respectively. Therefore, it can be seen from this experiment and consideration that the speech quality of this proposed algorithm is improved compared to the frequency domain delay-sum beamforming algorithm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.713-717
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• 2014

This paper presents a beamforming technique for locating impulsive sound source. The conventional frequency-domain beamformer is advantageous for localizing noise sources for a certain frequency band of concern, but the existence of many frequency components in the wide-band spectrum of impulsive noise makes the beamforming image less clear. In contrast to a frequency-domain beamformer, it has been reported that a time-domain beamformer can be better suited for transient signals. Although both frequency- and time-domain beamformers produce the same result for the beamforming power, which is defined as the RMS value of its output, we can use alternative directional estimators such as the peak value and crest factor to enhance the performance of a time-domain beamformer. In this study, the performance of three different directional estimators, the peak, crest factor and RMS output values, are investigated and compared with the incoherent interfering noise embedded in multiple microphone signals. The proposed formula is verified via experiments in an anechoic chamber using a uniformly spaced linear array. The results show that the peak estimation of beamformer output determines the location with better spatial resolution and a lower side lobe level than crest factor and RMS estimation in noise free condition, but it is possible to accurately estimate the direction of the impulsive sound source using crest factor estimation in noisy environment with stationary interfering noise.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.490-495
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• 2009

An approach to 3D visualization of multiple sound sources has been developed with the application of a moving array technique. Frequency-domain beamforming algorithm is used to generate a beam power map and the sound source is modeled as a point source. When a conventional delay and sum beamformer is used, it is considered that 2D distribution of sensors leads to have deficiency in spatial resolution along a measurement distance. The goal of moving an array in this study is to form 3D array aperture surrounding multiple sound sources so that the improved spatial resolution in a virtual space can be expected. Numerical simulation was made to examine source localization capabilities of various shapes of array. The 3D beam power maps of hemispherical and spherical distribution are found to have very sharp resolution. For experiments, two sound sources were placed in the middle of defined virtual space and arc-shaped line array was rotated around the sources. It is observed that spherical array show the most accurate determination of multiple sources' positions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.907-914
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• 2009

An approach to 3D visualization of multiple sound sources has been developed with the application of a moving array technique. Frequency domain beamforming algorithm is used to generate a beam power map and the sound source is modeled as a point source. When a conventional delay and sum beamformer is used, it is considered that 2D distribution of sensors leads to have deficiency in spatial resolution along a measurement distance. The goal of moving an array in this study is to form 3D array aperture surrounding multiple sound sources so that the improved spatial resolution in a virtual space can be expected. Numerical simulation was made to examine source localization capabilities of various shapes of array. The 3D beam power maps of hemispherical and spherical distribution are found to have very sharp resolution. For experiments, several sound sources were placed in the middle of defined virtual space and arc-shaped line array was rotated around the sources. It is observed that spherical array shows the most accurate determination of multiple sources' positions.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.87-92
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• 2012

Speech enhancement aims to improve speech quality by removing background noise from noisy speech. Independent vector analysis is a type of frequency-domain independent component analysis method that is known to be free from the frequency bin permutation problem in the process of blind source separation from multi-channel inputs. This paper proposed a new method of microphone array based speech enhancement that combines independent vector analysis and beamforming techniques. Independent vector analysis is used to separate speech and noise components from multi-channel noisy speech, and delay-sum beamforming is used to determine the enhanced speech among the separated signals. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, experiments for computer simulated multi-channel noisy speech with various signal-to-noise ratios were carried out, and both PESQ and output signal-to-noise ratio were obtained as objective speech quality measures. Experimental results have shown that the proposed method is superior to the conventional microphone array based noise removal approach like GSC beamforming in the speech enhancement.