Patent ID: 8903106

Claim:
A signal processing subsystem for processing audio signals generated by a microphone array comprising (1) a first microphone set of two or more microphones located on a first ellipse and (2) a second microphone set of one or more microphones located within the first ellipse, wherein the microphones in the first and second microphone sets are effectively all in one plane, the signal processing subsystem comprising: a decomposer adapted to spatially decompose the audio signals generated by the microphone array into a plurality of eigenbeam outputs, wherein the decomposer: (i) generates a first set of beams using audio signals from the first microphone set, wherein the first set of beams provides beampattern control only within the one plane and no independent beampattern control out of the one plane; (ii) generates second-set audio signals using audio signals from the second microphone set, wherein the second-set audio signals provide no independent beampattern control out of the one plane; and (iii) combines a filtered version of at least one of the beams and a filtered version of the second-set audio signals to generate at least one eigenbeam output, wherein the plurality of eigenbeam outputs provides beampattern control out of the one plane; and a beamformer adapted to combine the plurality of eigenbeam outputs to generate one or more output beampatterns.