A spatially constrained subband beamforming algorithm for enhancement

This paper discusses speech enhancement in an enclosed environment such as communication in a motorcycle helmet. A new constrained subband adaptive beamformer is proposed, which uses the concept of an earlier proposed calibrated beamformer mainly developed for a hands-free in-car environment. The highly non-stationary nature of the disturbing sound field encountered in an motorcycle helmet and the fact that the source is situated in the extreme nearfield of the array, causes the beamformer to produce an unwanted fluctuation in the output level. The spatially constrained beamformer proposed in this paper makes sure that the output maintains a constant gain, as long as the corresponding source originates from the desired location.