Patent ID: 7970151

Claim:
A system comprising: a set of microphones; a memory that stores program instructions; a processor configured to read and execute the program instructions from the memory, wherein the program instructions are executable to implement: (a) receiving input signals, wherein each of the input signals is received from a corresponding one of the microphones; (b) operating on a first subset of the input signals to respectively generate first versions of the input signals in the first subset, wherein the first versions are band limited to a first frequency range, wherein the first frequency range is below a transition frequency; (c) operating on the first versions of the input signals in the first subset with a first set of beam parameters in order to compute a first output signal, wherein the first set of beam parameters corresponds to a first virtual beam having an integer-order superdirective structure; (d) operating on a second subset of the input signals to respectively generate second versions of the input signals in the second subset, wherein the second versions are band limited to a second frequency range different from the first frequency range, wherein the second frequency range is above the transition frequency, wherein the second subset includes two or more of the input signals and is not identical to the first subset of the input signals; (e) operating on the second versions of the input signals in the second subset with a second set of beam parameters in order to compute a second output signal, wherein the second set of beam parameters corresponds to a second virtual beam having a delay-and-sum structure; (f) generating a resultant signal, wherein the resultant signal includes a combination of at least the first output signal and the second output signal.