We propose a new robust distributed linearly constrained beamformer which utilizes a set of linear equality constraints to reduce the cross power spectral density matrix to a block-diagonal form. The proposed beamformer has a convenient objective function for use in arbitrary distributed network topologies while having identical performance to a centralized implementation. Moreover, the new optimization problem is robust to relative acoustic transfer function (RATF) estimation errors and to target activity detection (TAD) errors. Two variants of the proposed beamformer are presented and evaluated in the context of multi-microphone speech enhancement in a wireless acoustic sensor network, and are compared with other state-ofthe-art distributed beamformers in terms of communication costs and robustness to RATF estimation errors and TAD errors.

In this paper we present a novel derivation for an existing node-based algorithm for distributed optimisation termed the primal-dual method of multipliers (PDMM). In contrast to its initial derivation, in this work monotone operator theory is used to connect PDMM with other first-order methods such as Douglas-Rachford splitting and the alternating direction method of multipliers thus providing insight to the operation of the scheme. In particular, we show how PDMM combines a lifted dual form in conjunction with Peaceman-Rachford splitting to remove the need for collaboration between nodes per iteration. We demonstrate sufficient conditions for strong primal convergence for a general class of functions while under the assumption of strong convexity and functional smoothness, we also introduce a primal geometric convergence bound. Finally we introduce a distributed method of parameter selection in the geometric convergent case, requiring only finite transmissions to implement regardless of network topology.Index Terms-Primal-Dual method of multipliers (PDMM), alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), distributed optimisation, monotone operator, optimisation over networks.

In this paper we propose a distributed reformulation of the linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) beamformer for use in acoustic wireless sensor networks. The proposed distributed minimum variance (DMV) algorithm, for which we demonstrate implementations for both cyclic and acyclic networks, allows the optimal beamformer output to be computed at each node without the need for sharing raw data within the network. By exploiting the low rank structure of estimated covariance matrices in time-varying noise fields, the algorithm can also provide a reduction in the total amount of data transmitted during computation when compared to centralised solutions. This is particularly true when multiple microphones are used per node. We also compare the performance of DMV with state of the art distributed beamformers and demonstrate that it achieves greater improvements in SNR in dynamic noise fields with similar transmission costs.

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