Microphone array signal processing for hearing aid application

We consider an equally spaced linear array with R microphone sections each with L FIR taps. The tap coefficients are obtained upon the maximization of the array energy concentration over some desired spatial "look" region and wide frequency band subject to user imposed spatial and frequency attenuation constraints. These coefficients are given by the dominant generalized eigenvector of a generalized eigenvalue problem. Analytical, numerical, and computational complexity properties of the generalized eigenvector solution are discussed. Numerical and simulation examples for an array with four microphones, a sampling frequency of 7.35 kHz, and different number of tap coefficients, illustrate the feasibility of achieving real-time high speech quality acoustic beamformer with spatial interference rejection capability.