A robust region-based near-field beamformer

In this paper, a broadband region-based near-field beamforming algorithm is proposed and demonstrated for acoustic applications. We use an eigenfilter structure with a minimum-energy cost function based on desired and undesired near-field regions. Robustness is thus achieved by focusing on signals generated from desired zones in space while rejecting signals from undesired zones. This construction leads to a linear matrix pencil formulated in terms of the array gain to these desired and undesired zones. We include a far-field model as part of the rejection zones that further improves performance in reverberant environments. We demonstrate the robustness of the algorithm in simulated and real scenarios.