LCMV beamformer with DNN-based multichannel concurrent speakers detector

Application of the linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) beamformer (BF) to speaker extraction tasks in real-life scenarios necessitates a sophisticated control mechanism to facilitate the estimation of the noise spatial cross-power spectral density (cPSD) matrix and the relative transfer function (RTF) of all sources of interest. We propose a deep neural network (DNN)-based multichannel concurrent speakers detector (MCCSD) that utilizes all available microphone signals to detect the activity patterns of all speakers. Time frames classified as no active speaker frames will be utilized to estimate the cPSD, while time frames with a single detected speaker will be utilized for estimating the associated RTF. No estimation will take place during concurrent speaker activity. Experimental results show that the multi-channel approach significantly improves its single-channel counterpart.