Detecting device proximities

• US 10,062,372 B1
• Filed: 05/09/2016
• Issued: 08/28/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/28/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Barton, William Folwell, Hilmes, Philip Ryan, Velusamy, Kavitha
• Primary Examiner(s): Chin, Vivian
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kurr, Jason R
• Application Number:
  US15/149,688
• Time in Patent Office: 841 Days
• Field of Search: 381 7111, 381 719, 381 66, 381 92, 381303, 381 941, 381110, 37938701-39201, 37940601-40616, 700 94
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/16 Methods or devices for protecting against, or for damping, noise or other acoustic waves in general G10K11/36 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/178 by electro-acoustically regenerating the original acoustic waves in anti-phase
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 2210/108 Communication systems, e.g. where useful sound is kept and noise is cancelled
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 2210/3028 Filtering, e.g. Kalman filters or special analogue or digital filters
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 2210/505 Echo cancellation, e.g. multipath-, ghost- or reverberation-cancellation
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/34 Adaptation of a single recogniser for parallel processing, e.g. by use of multiple processors or cloud computing
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2021/02082 the noise being echo, reverberation of the speech
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2021/02165 Two microphones, one receiving mainly the noise signal and the other one mainly the speech signal
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0208 Noise filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 9/082 using echo cancellers echo cancellers per se H04B3/23

Abstract

An audio device may be configured to produce output audio and to capture input audio for speech recognition. In some cases, a second device may also be used to capture input audio to improve isolation of input audio with respect to the output audio. In addition, acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) may be used to remove components of output audio from input signals of the first and second devices. AEC may be implemented by an adaptive filter based on dynamically optimized filter coefficients. The filter coefficients may be analyzed to detect situations in which the first and second devices are too close to each other, and the user may then be prompted to increase the distance between the two devices.

Claims

1. A first device comprising:

a microphone configured to produce a first audio signal at least partly representing output audio produced by a speaker of a second device, wherein the first device is positioned at a distance from the second device;

an adaptive finite impulse response (FIR) filter configured to;

obtain a second audio signal used by the second device to generate the output audio; and

remove, using the second audio signal, at least a portion of the first audio signal to generate a third audio signal; and

a detector configured to send, based at least in part on a first sequence of filter coefficients associated with the adaptive FIR filter, a notification that at least one of the first device or the second device is to be moved to increase the distance.

2. The first device as recited in claim 1, wherein the detector is further configured to:

determine a measurement corresponding to the output audio in the first audio signal by analyzing the first sequence of filter coefficients; and

determine that the measurement does not satisfy criteria.

3. The first device as recited in claim 2, wherein the measurement is the distance and the criteria is a minimum distance between the first device and the second device necessary to satisfy the criteria.

4. A method comprising:

obtaining a first audio signal representing audio received at a first device, wherein the first audio signal at least partly represents output audio produced by a speaker of a second device;

obtaining a second audio signal, the second audio signal used by the second device to generate the output audio;

removing, using the second audio signal and a finite impulse response (FIR) filter corresponding to a first sequence of filter coefficients, at least a portion of the first audio signal to generate a third audio signal;

determining, based at least in part on the first sequence of filter coefficients, a measurement of output audio at least partly represented in the first audio signal, the measurement being determined prior to the removing;

determining that the measurement does not satisfy criteria; and

providing, based at least in part on the determining that the measurement does not satisfy the criteria, a notification to increase a distance between the first device and the second device.

5. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising creating an updated version of the first sequence of filter coefficients to reduce a signal power of at least one of the first audio signal or the second audio signal.

6. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the output audio comprises at least one of machine-generated speech, music, or spoken word.

7. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising sending at least one of the first audio signal, the second audio signal, or the third audio signal to a remote computing resource.

8. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the measurement is a distance between the first device and the second device and the criteria is a minimum distance necessary to satisfy the criteria.

9. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein determining the measurement comprises identifying a peak filter coefficient in the first sequence of filter coefficients that corresponds to a direct acoustic path between the first device and the second device;

and

determining the distance between the first device and the second device based at least in part on the peak filter coefficient in the first sequence of filter coefficients being in a first position of multiple positions.

10. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the determining the measurement further comprises determining that the peak filter coefficient corresponds to an echo and that the first position indicates a time of propagation of the echo.

11. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the measurement comprises a strength of the output audio that is present in the first audio signal.

12. The method as recited in claim 11, wherein:

determining the measurement comprises identifying a peak filter coefficient in the first sequence of filter coefficients and determining that the peak filter coefficient is a first peak filter coefficient that corresponds to a direct acoustic path between the first device and the second device; and

determining the strength of the output audio in the first audio signal based at least in part on a magnitude of the peak filter coefficient.

13. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising determining the strength of the output audio in the first audio signal based at least in part on a position of a filter coefficient within the first sequence of filter coefficients, the position corresponding to a direct acoustic path between the second device and the first device.

14. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising:

determining the strength of the output audio in the first audio signal based at least in part on a first position of a first filter coefficient within the first sequence of filter coefficients, the position corresponding to a direct acoustic path between the second device and the first device; and

determining that a second position of a second filter coefficient within the first sequence of filter coefficients corresponds to a reflective acoustic paths between the second device and the first device.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the determining the measurement comprises:

calculating a first ratio of a first direct strength of the output audio that is present in the first audio signal versus a first reflective strength of the output audio that is present in the first audio signal; and

calculating a second ratio of a second direct strength of the output audio that is present in the fourth audio signal versus a second reflective strength of the output audio that is present in the fourth audio signal.

16. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

obtaining a fourth audio signal representing audio received at the second device; and

removing the output audio from the fourth audio signal based at least in part on the second audio signal and a second sequence of filter coefficients,

wherein determining the measurement further comprises determining the measurement based at least in part on the first sequence of filter coefficients and the second sequence of filter coefficients.

17. A method comprising:

obtaining a first audio signal representing audio received at a first device, wherein the first audio signal at least partly represents output audio produced by a speaker of a second device;

obtaining a second audio signal, the second audio signal used by the second device to generate the output audio;

removing, using the second audio signal and a finite impulse response (FIR) filter corresponding to a first sequence of filter coefficients, at least a portion of the first audio signal to generate a third audio signal; and

providing, based at least in part on the first sequence of filter coefficients, a notification to increase a distance between the first device and the second device.

18. The method as recited in claim 17, further comprising:

determining a measurement corresponding to the output audio in the first audio signal based at least in part on the first sequence of filter coefficients; and

determining that the measurement does not satisfy criteria.

19. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein determining the measurement comprises comparing a direct strength of the output audio that is present in the first audio signal versus a reflective strength of the output audio that is present in the first audio signal.

20. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein the measurement is a strength of the output audio that is present in the first audio signal and the criteria is a minimum strength.