TY - JOUR AB - Maximizing the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a sensor array in the presence of spatially colored noise leads to a generalized eigenvalue problem. While this approach has extensively been employed in narrowband (antenna) array beamforming, it is typically not used for broadband (microphone) array beamforming due to the uncontrolled amount of speech distortion introduced by a narrowband SNR criterion. In this paper, we show how the distortion of the desired signal can be controlled by a single-channel post-filter, resulting in a performance comparable to the generalized minimum variance distortionless response beamformer, where arbitrary transfer functions relate the source and the microphones. Results are given both for directional and diffuse noise. A novel gradient ascent adaptation algorithm is presented, and its good convergence properties are experimentally revealed by comparison with alternatives from the literature. A key feature of the proposed beamformer is that it operates blindly, i.e., it neither requires knowledge about the array geometry nor an explicit estimation of the transfer functions from source to sensors or the direction-of-arrival. AU - Warsitz, Ernst AU - Haeb-Umbach, Reinhold ID - 11927 IS - 5 JF - IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing KW - acoustic signal processing KW - arbitrary transfer function KW - array signal processing KW - blind acoustic beamforming KW - direction-of-arrival KW - direction-of-arrival estimation KW - eigenvalues and eigenfunctions KW - generalized eigenvalue decomposition KW - gradient ascent adaptation algorithm KW - microphone arrays KW - microphones KW - narrowband array beamforming KW - sensor array KW - single-channel post-filter KW - spatially colored noise KW - transfer functions TI - Blind Acoustic Beamforming Based on Generalized Eigenvalue Decomposition VL - 15 ER -