Patent ID: 7788066

Claim:
A method for improving noise discrimination in a system having a plurality of sensors each configured to generate an input signal representable by an input vector having a phase component and a magnitude component, the plurality of sensors arranged to have an on-axis direction, the method comprising: generating an input electrical signal from each of the plurality of sensors; processing the input electrical signals from the plurality of sensors, said processing including: using the input electrical signals from a first pair of sensors to obtain a coarse vector phase difference corresponding to a coarse measurement of an angle of arrival of a signal input source relative to the on-axis direction; using the input electrical signals from a second pair of sensors to obtain a fine vector phase difference corresponding to a fine measurement of the angle of arrival of the signal input source; generating an input phase difference value from the coarse and fine vector phase differences; enhancing the input phase difference value as a function of the angle of arrival to generate an output phase difference value; generating first and second output vectors having a phase difference based on the output phase difference value; and combining the first and second output vectors; and generating an output electrical signal based on the combined first and second output vectors.