Normalized observation vector clustering approach for sparse source separation

This paper presents a new method for the blind separation of sparse sources whose number N can exceed the number of sensors M. Recently, sparseness based blind separation has been actively studied. However, most methods utilize a linear sensor array (or only two sensors), and therefore have certain limitations; e.g., they cannot be applied to symmetrically positioned sources. To allow the use of more than two sensors that can be arranged in a non-linear/non-uniform way, we propose a new method that includes the normalization and clustering of the observation vectors. We report promising results for the speech separation of 3-dimensionally distributed five sources with a non-linear/non-uniform array of four sensors in a room (RT ₆₀= 120 ms).