disable circuitry for selectively training the adaptive filter a predetermined period of time a highpass filter may also be used to filter a preselected noise portion of the sensed signals before the signals are forwarded to the beamformer the speech recognition system may include a speaker independent base which is able to be adapted by a predetermined amount of training by a speaker and which system includes a voice dialer or a speech coder for telecommunication application_number US 85416192 A description while various preferred embodiments described below will use the example of a driver speaker in an automobile environment this should in no way limit the scope of the present invention for example such invention would be similarly useful in the cockpit of an airplane the cab of a truck the cabin of a boat or any noisy environment where hands free voice communications is desirable moreover it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the improved speech acquisition system and method of the present invention will greatly increase the accuracy of speech recognition for verbal commands to a vehicle a preferred embodiment of the present invention 39 s speech acquisition system in a noisy environment is depicted in fig1 this system uses a linear array of sensors 10 preferably microphones mounted inside a car and produces enhanced speech from the multi microphone data using beamforming algorithms speech enhancement using a microphone array and beamforming is a multichannel data processing problem however if the delays between the speaker not shown and microphones 10 are known or can be estimated.