Apparatus and method for enhancing audio quality using non-uniform configuration of microphones

An apparatus for enhancing audio quality, the apparatus comprising:

• at least three microphones disposed in a non-uniform configuration;
• a filtering unit including a plurality of band-pass filters configured to allow acoustic signals input from the at least three microphones to pass through respective frequency bands of the plurality of band-pass filters, wherein the range of frequencies corresponding to each band-pass filter is determined based on intervals between the at least three microphones;
• a frequency conversion unit configured to transform the acoustic signals having passed through the filtering unit into acoustic signals of a frequency domain;
• a two channel beamforming unit configured to reduce noise input from a direction other than a direction of a target sound of acoustic signals of two channels for each frequency band, the acoustic signals having passed through a same band-pass filter among the plurality of band-pass filters;
• a merging unit configured to merge the noise reduced acoustic signals output for each frequency band;
• and
• an inverse frequency conversion unit configured to transform the merged signals into acoustic signals of a time domain.

A method of enhancing audio quality of an acoustic array, the method comprising:

• transforming acoustic signals input from at least three microphones disposed in a non-uniform configuration into acoustic signals of the frequency domain;
• dividing a range of frequencies of the acoustic signals of frequency domain into frequency bands based on intervals between the microphones;
• merging the acoustic signals of the frequency domain into two channel signals based on the frequency bands;
• reducing noise of the acoustic signals input from a direction other than a direction of a target sound by use of the two channel signals;
• and
• outputting the noise reduced signals.

A method of enhancing audio quality of an acoustic array including at least three microphones disposed in a non-uniform configuration, the method comprising:

• allowing acoustic signals input from the at least three microphones to pass through respective frequency bands of a plurality of band-pass filters, wherein the range of frequencies corresponding to each band-pass filter is determined based on intervals between the at least three microphones;
• transforming the acoustic signals into acoustic signals of a frequency domain;
• reducing noise input from direction other than a direction of a target sound of acoustic signals of two channels for each frequency band, the acoustic signals having passed through a same band-pass filter among the plurality of band-pass filters;
• merging the noise-reduced acoustic signals output for each frequency band;
• and
• transforming the merged noise-reduced acoustic signals into acoustic signals of time domain.