Coordination of beamformers for noise estimation and noise suppression
First Claim
1. A process for adaptively selecting two or more beams from among a plurality of acoustic pickup beams that are produced by a beamforming process using a plurality of microphone signals from a plurality of microphones, the process comprising:
- producing the plurality of acoustic pickup beams based on groups of the plurality of microphones, wherein the groups are determined based on an estimation of voice activity and an estimation of noise characteristics in the microphones signals; and
selecting the two or more beams from among the plurality of acoustic pickup beams, including a voice beam and a noise beam, based on thresholds for voice-separation and thresholds for noise-matching, whereinduring a period where a desired voice is deemed active, indicating presence of speech, difference between a strength of a component of the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam are compared to a threshold for voice separation to determine whether there is sufficiently large voice separation between the noise beam and the voice beam, andduring a period where the desired voice is deemed inactive, indicating non-speech, difference between a strength of a component of the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam are compared to a threshold for noise-matching to determine whether there is sufficient noise matching between the noise beam and the voice beam, andwherein the voice beam is used to pick up a voice signal and the noise beam is used to provide information to estimate a noise signal; and
whereinit is determined whether the two or more beams meet the threshold for noise-matching by a) obtaining ratios between the strength of a component of the noise beam in the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam over a time interval, b) comparing the ratios to the threshold for noise-matching, and c) if the threshold for noise-matching is met, setting a correction factor for noise-matching; and
it is determined whether the two or more beams meet the threshold for voice separation by calculating adjusted ratios by applying the correction factor to initial ratios between the strength of a component of the noise beam and the strength of a component of the voice beam.
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Abstract
An audio system has a housing in which are integrated a number of microphones. A programmed processor accesses the microphone signals and produces a number of acoustic pick up beams based groups of microphones, an estimation of voice activity and an estimation of noise characteristics on each beam. Two or more beams including a voice beam that is used to pick up a desired voice and a noise beam that is used to provide information to estimate ambient noise are adaptively selected from among the plurality of beams, based on thresholds for voice separation and thresholds for noise-matching. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
60 Citations
29 Claims
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1. A process for adaptively selecting two or more beams from among a plurality of acoustic pickup beams that are produced by a beamforming process using a plurality of microphone signals from a plurality of microphones, the process comprising:
- producing the plurality of acoustic pickup beams based on groups of the plurality of microphones, wherein the groups are determined based on an estimation of voice activity and an estimation of noise characteristics in the microphones signals; and
selecting the two or more beams from among the plurality of acoustic pickup beams, including a voice beam and a noise beam, based on thresholds for voice-separation and thresholds for noise-matching, whereinduring a period where a desired voice is deemed active, indicating presence of speech, difference between a strength of a component of the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam are compared to a threshold for voice separation to determine whether there is sufficiently large voice separation between the noise beam and the voice beam, and during a period where the desired voice is deemed inactive, indicating non-speech, difference between a strength of a component of the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam are compared to a threshold for noise-matching to determine whether there is sufficient noise matching between the noise beam and the voice beam, and wherein the voice beam is used to pick up a voice signal and the noise beam is used to provide information to estimate a noise signal; and
whereinit is determined whether the two or more beams meet the threshold for noise-matching by a) obtaining ratios between the strength of a component of the noise beam in the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam over a time interval, b) comparing the ratios to the threshold for noise-matching, and c) if the threshold for noise-matching is met, setting a correction factor for noise-matching; and it is determined whether the two or more beams meet the threshold for voice separation by calculating adjusted ratios by applying the correction factor to initial ratios between the strength of a component of the noise beam and the strength of a component of the voice beam. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
- producing the plurality of acoustic pickup beams based on groups of the plurality of microphones, wherein the groups are determined based on an estimation of voice activity and an estimation of noise characteristics in the microphones signals; and
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16. An audio system, comprising:
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a housing having integrated therein a plurality of microphones having a fixed geometrical relationship to each other; a processor to access a plurality of microphone signals produced by the plurality of microphones, respectively; and memory having stored therein instructions that when executed by the processor (a) produce a plurality of acoustic pickup beams based on groups of the plurality of microphones, wherein the groups are determined based on an estimation of voice activity, and an estimation of noise characteristics in the microphone signals, and (b) select two or more beams, including a voice beam and a noise beam, from among the plurality of acoustic pickup beams based on thresholds for voice separation and thresholds for noise-matching, wherein selecting the voice beam and the noise beam, comprises, during a period where a desired voice is deemed active, indicating a presence of speech, difference between a strength of a component of the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam are compared to a threshold for voice separation to determine whether there is sufficiently large voice separation between the two or more beams, and during a period where the desired voice is deemed inactive, indicating non-speech, difference between a strength of a component of the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam are compared to a threshold for noise-matching to determine whether there is sufficient noise matching between the two or more beams, and wherein the voice beam is selected and used to pick up a voice signal and the noise beam is selected and used to provide information to estimate a noise signal, and wherein it is determined whether the two or more beams meet the threshold for noise-matching by a) obtaining ratios between the strength of a component of the noise beam in the noise beam and a strength of a component of the voice beam over a time interval, b) comparing the ratios to the threshold for noise-matching, and c) if the threshold for noise-matching is met, setting a correction factor for noise-matching; and it is determined whether the two or more beams meet the threshold for voice separation by calculating adjusted ratios by applying the correction factor to initial ratios between the strength of a component of the noise beam and the strength of a component of the voice beam. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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Specification