Sound source separation apparatus and method

A sound source separation method, comprising:

• obtaining a multichannel sound signal via a microphone array;
• generating a spatial frequency spectrum based on the multichannel sound signal;
• generating a spatial frequency mask for masking a component of a specific region in a spatial frequency domain, wherein the spatial frequency mask is generated based on:
• a direction of arrival of the multichannel sound signal from a specific sound source, and
• the spatial frequency spectrum;
• and
• extracting, as an estimated sound source spectrum, a component of the specific sound source based on a multiplication of the spatial frequency spectrum with the spatial frequency mask.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to execute operations, the operations comprising:

• obtaining a multichannel sound signal via a microphone array;
• generating a spatial frequency spectrum based on the multichannel sound signal;
• generating a spatial frequency mask for masking a component of a specific region in a spatial frequency domain, wherein the spatial frequency mask is generated based on:
• a direction of arrival of the multichannel sound signal from a specific sound source, and
• the spatial frequency spectrum;
• and
• extracting, as an estimated sound source spectrum, a component of the specific sound source based on a multiplication of the spatial frequency spectrum with the spatial frequency mask.