The Microphone Book, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 19

OVERVIEW OF MICROPHONE ARRAYS AND ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS

INTRODUCTION

A microphone array may be considered to be a set of microphone elements arrayed in space whose outputs are individually processed and summed to produce a given output. In a basic sense, an early cardioid microphone created by summing separate pressure and gradient elements may be thought of as an array, but this is not what we have in mind. The arrays and techniques discussed here normally use multiple elements to achieve a target directional response that may be specific for a given application. In other cases, signal processing may be applied to single microphones, or microphone channels, to enhance performance in some unique respect.

Adaptive systems are those whose ...