Microphone Arrays for Immersive Voice Communications

沉浸式语音通信有助于在低成本下高效地进行小组协作和电话会议 成本它正在成为现代通信网络的一个组成部分。关键技术挑战 用于沉浸式语音通信系统的能力是获得高保真的声学、音频和 语音信号，同时保持源的空间信息完整，使得远程收听者可以 为了感知声学环境，跟随一组谈话者，并通过倾听他们的声音来区分他们。 信号的再现。为了获得高保真的语音并保持声音的真实感， to use microphone麦克风arrays阵列.虽然麦克风阵列处理已经研究了几十年， 现有技术产生依赖于频率的响应，这可能导致信号的很多失真 感兴趣，噪音，干扰和声音的现实主义;因此，它们不足以 沉浸式通信系统。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，可以允许 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.本方案主要有以下技术创新和优点。 1)频率不变传声器的基本公式和信号处理理论 阵列设计和波束形成的信号频率范围从60赫兹到20千赫。 2)新一代线性麦克风阵列设计和频率不变技术， 鲁棒波束形成 3)新一代圆形和球形麦克风阵列设计和频率不变， 鲁棒波束形成算法。 4)具有一定性能的传声器阵列几何优化的信号处理理论 的搜索. 5)分布式麦克风阵列信号处理理论与新一代技术 处理. 6)一种实用的系统，以无处不在的声学信号作为输入，并产生高保真输出 具有源真实性和可识别的源身份的信号。 很明显，拟议中的研究是沉浸式语音通信的核心。所得 除了沉浸式语音通信之外，技术还可以具有广泛的应用， 远程咨询、人机界面、声学监控、安全、智能手机、智能家居 系统、平板电脑、助听器等。随着麦克风阵列需求的增加， 这一项目的成果无疑将对社会产生深远的影响，确实不可或缺。

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.