Frequency domain blind source separation for many speech signals

Abstract

This paper presents a method for solving the permutation problem of frequency domain blind source separation (BSS) when the number of source signals is large, and the potential source locations are omnidirectional. We propose a combination of small and large spacing sensor pairs with various axis directions in order to obtain proper geometric information for solving the permutation problem. Experimental results in a room (reverberation time TR=130 ms) with eight microphones show that the proposed method can separate a mixture of six speech signals that come from various directions, even when two of them come from the same direction. © Springer-Verlag 2004.