Acoustic vector sensor based speech source separation with mixed Gaussian-Laplacian distributions

Acoustic vector sensor (AVS) based convolutive blind source separation problem has been recently addressed under the framework of probabilistic time-frequency (T-F) masking, where both the DOA and the mixing vector cues are modelled by Gaussian distributions. In this paper, we show that the distributions of these cues vary with room acoustics, such as reverberation. Motivated by this observation, we propose a mixed model of Laplacian and Gaussian distributions to provide a better fit for these cues. The parameters of the mixed model are estimated and refined iteratively by an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. Experiments performed on the speech mixtures in simulated room environments show that the mixed model offers an average of about 0.68 dB and 1.18 dB improvements in signal-to-distotion (SDR) over the Gaussian and Laplacian model, respectively.