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In this paper we consider the problem of separation of unknown number of sources from their underdetermined convolutive mixtures via time-frequency (TF) masking. We propose two algorithms, one for the estimation of the masks which are to be applied to the mixture in the TF domain for the separation of signals in the frequency domain, and the other for solving the permutation problem. The algorithm for mask estimation is based on the concept of angles in complex vector space. Unlike the previously reported methods, the algorithm does not require any estimation of the mixing matrix or the source positions for mask estimation. The algorithm clusters the mixture samples in the TF domain based on the Hermitian angle between the sample vector and a reference vector using the well known k-means or fuzzy c-means clustering algorithms. The membership functions so obtained from the clustering algorithms are directly used as the masks. The algorithm for solving the permutation problem clusters the estimated masks by using k-means clustering of small groups of nearby masks with overlap. The effectiveness of the algorithm in separating the sources, including collinear sources, from their underdetermined convolutive mixtures obtained in a real room environment, is demonstrated.

Localization of impacts on solid surfaces is a challenging task due to dispersion where the velocity of wave propagation is frequency dependent. In this work, we develop a source localization algorithm on solids with applications to human-computer interface. We employ surface-mounted piezoelectric shock sensors that, in turn, allow us to convert existing flat surfaces to a low-cost touch interface. The algorithm estimates the time-differences-of-arrival between the signals via onset detection in the time-frequency domain. The proposed algorithm is suitable for vibration signals generated by a metal stylus and a finger.The validity of the algorithm is then verified on an aluminium and a glass plate surface.

Conventional sparseness-based approaches for instantaneous underdetermined blind source separation (UBSS) do not take into account the temporal structure of the source signals. In this work, we exploit the source temporal structure and propose a linear source recovery solution for the UBSS problem which does not require the source signals to be sparse. Assuming the source signals are uncorrelated and can be modeled by an autoregressive (AR) model, the proposed algorithm is able to estimate the source AR coefficients from the mixtures given the mixing matrix. We prove that the UBSS problem can be converted into a determined problem by combining the source AR model together with the original mixing equation to form a state-space model. The Kalman filter is then applied to obtain a linear source estimate in the minimum mean-squared error sense. Simulation results using both synthetic AR signals and speech utterances show that the proposed algorithm achieves better separation performance compared with conventional sparseness-based UBSS algorithms.Index Terms-Underdetermined blind source separation, source recovery, autoregressive model, Kalman filter, matrix rank.

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