Microphone Arrays for Immersive Voice Communications

身临其境的语音通信以较低的成本高效地促进小组协作和电话会议 成本。它正在成为现代通信网络不可或缺的一部分。一个关键的技术挑战 对于身临其境的语音通信系统来说，能够获得高保真的声音、音频和 同时保持信源的空间信息完整，以便远程收听者有可能 要感知声音环境，请跟随一组说话者，并通过收听 信号的再现。为了获得高保真的语音，并保持声音的现实感，有必要 使用麦克风阵列。尽管麦克风阵列处理已经被研究了几十年， 现有技术产生频率相关的响应，这可能对信号造成很大的失真 感兴趣、噪声、干扰和声音真实感；因此，它们不足以满足 身临其境的通信系统。因此，本提案旨在解决以下技术问题 麦克风阵列设计和波束形成，并开发理论、方法和技术，可以 用于沉浸式语音通信的高保真空间声音的获取、处理和再现 系统。该方案包含以下关键技术创新和优点。 1)频率不变传声器的基本公式和信号处理理论 用于频率范围从60赫兹到20千赫的信号的阵列设计和波束形成。 2)新一代线性传声器阵列设计和频率不变技术 稳健的波束形成。 3)新一代圆形和球面传声器阵列设计及频率不变和 稳健的波束形成算法。 4)在一定性能条件下优化传声器阵列结构的信号处理理论 标准。 5)分布式麦克风阵列信号处理理论与新一代技术 正在处理。 6)将无处不在的声音信号作为输入并产生高保真输出的实用系统 具有来源现实主义和可识别来源身份的信号。 很明显，这项拟议的研究是沉浸式语音通信的核心。由此产生的 除了身临其境的语音通信之外，技术还可以有广泛的应用，包括 远程协作、人机界面、声音监控、安全、智能手机、智能家居 系统、平板电脑、助听器等。随着对麦克风阵列的需求不断增加，研究 这个项目的成果无疑将对社会产生深远的影响，它将是真正不可或缺的。

Immersive voice communication facilitates group collaborations and teleconferencing efficiently at low costs. It is becoming an integral part of modern communication networks. A key technical challenge for an immersive voice communication system is the ability to acquire high-fidelity acoustic, audio, and speech signals while keeping spatial information of the sources intact so that it is possible for the remote listener to sense the acoustic environment, follow a panel of talkers, and distinguish them by listening to the reproduction of the signals. To acquire high-fidelity speech and preserve the sound realism, it is necessary to use microphone arrays. Although microphone array processing has been studied for a few decades, existing techniques produce frequency-dependent responses, which may cause much distortion to the signal of interest, noise, interferences, and sound realism; as a result, they are not sufficient for immersive communication systems. This proposal is therefore organized to address the technical issues of microphone array design and beamforming and develop theory, methods, and technologies that can allow acquisition, processing, and reproduction of high-fidelity spatial sound for immersive voice communication systems. This proposal contains the following key technical innovations and merits. 1) A fundamental formulation of and a signal processing theory for frequency-invariant microphone array design and beamforming for signals with frequency range from 60 Hz to 20 kHz. 2) A new generation of technologies for linear microphone array design and frequency-invariant and robust beamforming. 3) A new generation of circular and spherical microphone array design and frequency-invariant and robust beamforming algorithms. 4) A signal processing theory for optimization of microphone array geometry with some given performance criteria. 5) A signal processing theory and a new generation of technologies for distributed microphone array processing. 6) A practical system that takes ubiquitous acoustic signals as input and produces high-fidelity output signals with source realism and identifiable source identities. It is clear that the proposed research is in the heart of immersive voice communication. The resulting technologies can have a broad range of applications besides immersive voice communication including telecollaboration, human-machine interfaces, acoustic surveillance, security, smartphones, smart home systems, tablet PCs, hearing aids, etc. As the demand of microphone arrays is increasing, the research result of this project will have undoubtedly a profound impact on the society and it will be truly indispensable.