Audio zoom for smartphones based on multiple adaptive beamformers

Abstract

Abstract. Some recent smartphones have offered the so-called audio zoom feature which allows to focus sound capture in the front direction while attenuating progressively surrounding sounds along with video zoom. This paper proposes a complete implementation of such function involving two major steps. First, targeted sound source is extracted by a novel approach that combines multiple adaptive beamformers having different look directions with a post-processing algorithm. Second, spatial zooming effect is created by leveraging the microphone signals and the enhanced target source. Subjective test with real-world audio recordings using a mock-up simulating an usual shape of the smartphone confirms the rich user experience obtained by the proposed system.