A gentle introduction to beamforming

Since the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying restrictions people worldwide have changed their way of working. The use of video conferencing platforms has skyrocketed and will continue to grow even after the pandemic ends. Gartner predicts that by 2024 only 25% of business meetings will take place in person [1].
Technical solutions are needed to ensure high audio quality in fully online and hybrid conferencing settings. Beamforming is one of the technologies that can actively improve the sound quality in such distance meetings. (for publications and further information see [2])
Moreover, beamforming is applied to help hearing-impaired people to pick out individual voices in loud environments [3]. The World Health Organization predicts that there will be 630 million hearing-impaired people by 2030 globally due to a growing and aging population [4]. This makes accessibility of hearing care and technologies for everyone essential.

In this video, we give a gentle introduction to beamforming fundamentals by introducing the delay-and-sum beamformer. The video is supposed to help students to learn audio-processing fundamentals and to introduce the topic to everyone interested in audio processing and technology. (References are provided in the YouTube Description)