Array Geometry Arrangement for Frequency Domain Blind Source Separation

In this paper, we propose 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. Geometric information such as direction of arrival is helpful for solving the permutation problem, but the information becomes more uncertain as the number of source signals increases. When we use a linear microphone array, we cannot obtain reliable geometric information due to the ambiguity and sensitivity inherent to the array geometry. We propose a combination of small and large spacing microphone pairs that have various axis directions. Experimental results show that the proposed method can separate a mixture of speech signals that come from various directions, even when some come from the same direction.