Directional noise suppression

A method of providing improved directional noise suppression in an electronic device having a microphone array made up of a plurality of microphones resulting in a reception pattern, the method comprising:

• specifying a direction of interest;
• determining directions corresponding to directions of speakers not lying in the direction of interest;
• beam forming the reception pattern of the microphone array to focus in the direction of interest and to suppress signals from the directions of speakers not lying in the direction of interest, creating beam formed reception data;
• generating a spatial mask as a function of direction relative to the direction of interest, the spatial mask emphasizing audio reception in the direction of interest and attenuating audio reception in the directions of speakers not lying in the direction of interest;
• and
• multiplying the beam formed reception data by the spatial mask to generate an audio signal with directional noise suppression.

An electronic device having improved directional noise suppression, the device comprising:

• a microphone array having a plurality of microphones;
• and
• a processor linked to the microphone array and being configured to:
• specify a direction of interest;
• and
• generate a spatial mask reception pattern of the microphone array to focus in the specified direction and to suppress signals from all other directions.