Patent ID: 7068796

Claim:
A microphone system comprising: a plurality of collinear microphones regularly spaced according to pluralities of distinct spacings with a common center; a plurality of microphone signal adders, wherein the microphones of each set of microphones having one of said spacings are connected to the same signal adder; a plurality of first filters, each connected to receive an output of a corresponding one of the microphone signal adders; a plurality of second filters each connected to an output of one of the microphones such that each microphone is connected to a microphone signal adder through the second filter, wherein each of the second filters implements one of a plurality of windowing functions that are each a function of one of the pluralities of spacings associated with the one of the microphones with which the second filter is connected; and an output adder connected to receive the output of the first filters and supply the combined signal as an output, wherein the frequency response of the first filters is such that the combined signal is flat over a selected frequency range in a selected direction.