Multiple DOA estimation and blind source separation using estimation-maximization

A blind source separation technique in noisy environment is proposed based on spectral masking and minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer (BF). Formulating the maximum-likelihood of the direction of arrivals (DOAs) and solving it using the expectation-maximization, enables the extraction of the masks and the associated MVDR BF as byproducts. The proposed direction of arrival estimator uses an explicit model of the ambient noise, which results in more accurate DOA estimates and good blind source separation. The experimental study demonstrates both the DOA estimation results and the separation capabilities of the proposed method using real room impulse responses in diffuse noise field.