Microphone probe, method, system and computer program product for audio signals processing
First Claim
1. A microphone probe having a first body being substantially a first solid of revolution with a number of audio sensors distributed thereon and located in recesses having substantially a shape of a second body of revolution having an axis of symmetry perpendicular to a surface of the first body, wherein the sensors are connected to an acquisition unit, characterized in that the audio sensors are digital audio sensors comprising a printed circuit board with at least one MEMS (microelectromechanical) microphone element mounted thereon, wherein the at least one MEMS microphone element is mounted on the side of the printed circuit board facing the interior of the first body, so that the sound reaches the at least one MEMS microphone element via the recess in the first body and an opening in the printed circuit board, wherein the depth of the recesses is in a range between 3 and 20 mm, and wherein the acquisition unit has a clocking device determining a common time base for the digital audio sensors, and wherein the acquisition unit is adapted to feed signals from particular digital audio sensors to a processing unit.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The invention concerns a microphone probe having a body being substantially a first solid of revolution with a number of audio sensors distributed thereon and located in the recesses. The recesses have substantially a shape of a second body of revolution with an axis of symmetry perpendicular to the surface of the body. The sensors are connected to an acquisition unit, that delivers audio signals to the output. The audio sensors are digital audio sensors comprising printed circuit board with MEMS microphone element mounted thereon, wherein MEMS microphone element is mounted on the side of the printed circuit board facing the inner side of the body, so that the sound reaches MEMS microphone element via recess and opening. The depth of recesses is in a range between 3 and 20 mm. The acquisition unit has a clocking device determining common time base for audio sensors.
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Citations
18 Claims
- 1. A microphone probe having a first body being substantially a first solid of revolution with a number of audio sensors distributed thereon and located in recesses having substantially a shape of a second body of revolution having an axis of symmetry perpendicular to a surface of the first body, wherein the sensors are connected to an acquisition unit, characterized in that the audio sensors are digital audio sensors comprising a printed circuit board with at least one MEMS (microelectromechanical) microphone element mounted thereon, wherein the at least one MEMS microphone element is mounted on the side of the printed circuit board facing the interior of the first body, so that the sound reaches the at least one MEMS microphone element via the recess in the first body and an opening in the printed circuit board, wherein the depth of the recesses is in a range between 3 and 20 mm, and wherein the acquisition unit has a clocking device determining a common time base for the digital audio sensors, and wherein the acquisition unit is adapted to feed signals from particular digital audio sensors to a processing unit.
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11. A method of processing audio signals comprising the steps of:
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acquiring a number of N signals from audio sensors; determining a direction of arrival of sound originating from a number of M sources; applying beamforming to obtain M channels corresponding to these sources from acquired signals using a filter table, characterized in that the frequency band of the acquired signals is divided at least into a first frequency band and a second frequency band, while a first beamforming method is applied in the first frequency band and a second beamforming method is applied in the second frequency band; and applying postprocessing including filtration of at least one of the M channels with a source-specific filtration wherein the value of the number of audio sensors used in beamforming depends on the frequency band and is selected so that the spacing between sensors is greater than 0.05 of the wavelength and lower than 0.5 of the wavelength in each of the frequency bands. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. An audio acquisition system comprising a microphone probe, a processing unit, and an external interface, the microphone probe
having a first body being substantially a first solid of revolution with a number of audio sensors distributed thereon and located in recesses having substantially a shape of a second body of revolution having an axis of symmetry perpendicular to a surface of the first body, wherein the sensors are connected to an acquisition unit, characterized in that the audio sensors are digital audio sensors comprising a printed circuit board with at least one MEMS (microelectromechanical) microphone element mounted thereon, wherein the at least one MEMS microphone element is mounted on the side of the printed circuit board facing the interior of the first body, so that the sound reaches the at least one MEMS microphone element via the recess in the first body and an opening in the printed circuit board, wherein the depth of the recesses is in a range between 3 and 20 mm, and wherein the acquisition unit has a clocking device determining a common time base for the digital audio sensors, and wherein the acquisition unit is adapted to feed the signals from particular digital audio sensors to, a processing unit which is adapted to carry on a method comprising the steps of: -
acquiring a number N of signals from audio sensors; determining a direction of arrival of sound originating from a M number of sources; applying beamforming to obtain M channels corresponding to these sources from acquired signals using a filter table; characterized in that the frequency band of the acquired signals is divided at least into a first frequency band and a second frequency band, while a first beamforming method is applied in the first frequency band and a second beamforming method is applied in the second frequency band; applying postprocessing including filtration of at least one of the M channels with a source-specific filtration; and outputting resulting channels with the external interface.
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Specification