Online Segmented Beamforming via Dynamic Programming

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Mittal, Manan, Corey, Ryan M., Cuji, Diego, Buck, John R., Singer, Andrew C.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Mittal, Manan
Corey, Ryan M.
Cuji, Diego
Buck, John R.
Singer, Andrew C.
author_facet Mittal, Manan
Corey, Ryan M.
Cuji, Diego
Buck, John R.
Singer, Andrew C.
contents In dynamic acoustic environments characterized by time-varying interferers and moving sources, effective beamforming requires accurately identifying stationary regions over time. Traditional Capon beamformers rely on the instantaneous ensemble covariance matrix, which is inaccessible in practice. Practical implementations overcome this by estimating the sample covariance matrix (SCM) through averaging over a block of temporal samples. However, in non-stationary settings, a naive batch approach fails. Moving interferers smear the SCM, causing the beamformer to place nulls in outdated locations while failing to track newly active interferers, thereby degrading its nulling capabilities. To address this fundamental limitation, an Online Segmented Beamformer is proposed. This algorithm incorporates data-driven temporal segmentation to causally minimize output power while dynamically adapting the SCM estimation windows to local stationarity. By framing the problem through the lens of dynamic programming, the proposed method tracks abrupt environmental changes and resets covariance estimates in real-time. We validate the performance of this framework in a complex, reverberant simulated acoustic environment and in highly reverberant real world experiments, demonstrating its superiority over fixed-window adaptive methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_08554
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Online Segmented Beamforming via Dynamic Programming
Mittal, Manan
Corey, Ryan M.
Cuji, Diego
Buck, John R.
Singer, Andrew C.
Sound
In dynamic acoustic environments characterized by time-varying interferers and moving sources, effective beamforming requires accurately identifying stationary regions over time. Traditional Capon beamformers rely on the instantaneous ensemble covariance matrix, which is inaccessible in practice. Practical implementations overcome this by estimating the sample covariance matrix (SCM) through averaging over a block of temporal samples. However, in non-stationary settings, a naive batch approach fails. Moving interferers smear the SCM, causing the beamformer to place nulls in outdated locations while failing to track newly active interferers, thereby degrading its nulling capabilities. To address this fundamental limitation, an Online Segmented Beamformer is proposed. This algorithm incorporates data-driven temporal segmentation to causally minimize output power while dynamically adapting the SCM estimation windows to local stationarity. By framing the problem through the lens of dynamic programming, the proposed method tracks abrupt environmental changes and resets covariance estimates in real-time. We validate the performance of this framework in a complex, reverberant simulated acoustic environment and in highly reverberant real world experiments, demonstrating its superiority over fixed-window adaptive methods.
title Online Segmented Beamforming via Dynamic Programming
topic Sound
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.08554