Study on beamformer performance with variation in array configuration, number of microphones and array aperture size for the detection of faraway speech signals in outdoor environments

Beamforming has been used since World war II where phased arrays were created for the use of radar systems to detect enemies. Up till today, beamforming has not been obsolete. Instead, it has been upgraded and used for complex systems such as the medical equipment where an image of a baby can be shown through ultrasound. The use of microphones has played an important part in our daily lives with telephones, video calls, recordings, broadcasting and many more. Especially with the advancement of technology, more people are using the internet to communicate and socialize. Video conferences and live streaming or broadcasts have become very popular. However, in a noisy environment, listeners or audiences of the broadcasts will have a hard time trying to hear the speaker as the microphone will collect all the sound signals it received, even noise. The acoustic beamformer can help to reduce the noise by steering it to the direction of the source that is desired where it will focus on the sound signal. It will then act as a filter by suppressing the noise from any other direction. This thesis aims to implement the delay and sum beamformer and with the beamform produced, where the performance of the beam is analyzed depending on the parameters such as the aperture size, number of microphones and array configuration. The delay and sum beamformer is simulated through MATLAB.Bachelor of Engineerin