Intensity vector direction exploitation for exhaustive blind source separation of convolutive mixtures

This article presents a technique that uses the intensity vector direction exploitation (IVDE) method for exhaustive separation of convolutive mixtures. While only a four-element compact sensor array is used, multiple channels for all possible source directions are produced by exhaustive separation. Singular value decomposition (SVD) is then applied to determine the signal subspace and the directions of the local maxima of the signal energy. This information is then used to select the channels containing the individual sources. While the original IVDE method requires the prior knowledge of the directions of sources for separation, the present method eliminates this need and achieves fully blind separation. Performing SVD at a post-processing stage also improves the sound quality. The method has been tested for convolutive mixtures of up to four sources and typical separation performances are given.