Microphone and Voice Activity Detection (VAD) configurations for use with communication systems

• US 20030228023A1
• Filed: 03/27/2003
• Published: 12/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Jawbone Innovations, LLC
• Original Assignee: AliphCom, Inc. (AliphCom Corp.)
• Inventors: Asseily, Alexander M., Burnett, Gregory C., Einaudi, Andrew E., Petit, Nicolas J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,467,543 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/92
• 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: G10L 25/78 Detection of presence or absence of voice signals switching of direction of transmission by voice frequency in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/10
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/93 Discriminating between voiced and unvoiced parts of speech signals G10L25/90 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2410/01 Noise reduction using microphones having different directional characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2410/05 Noise reduction with a separate noise microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/005 for combining the signals of two or more microphones specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407

Abstract

Communication systems are described, including both portable handset and headset devices, which use a number of microphone configurations to receive acoustic signals of an environment. The microphone configurations include, for example, a two-microphone array including two unidirectional microphones, and a two-microphone array including one unidirectional microphone and one omnidirectional microphone. The communication systems also include Voice Activity Detection (VAD) devices to provide information of human voicing activity. Components of the communications systems receive the acoustic signals and voice activity signals and, in response, automatically generate control signals from data of the voice activity signals. Components of the communication systems use the control signals to automatically select a denoising method appropriate to data of frequency subbands of the acoustic signals. The selected denoising method is applied to the acoustic signals to generate denoised acoustic signals when the acoustic signal includes speech and noise.

Claims

1. A communications system, comprising:

a voice detection subsystem receiving voice activity signals that include information of human voicing activity and automatically generating control signals using information of the voice activity signals; and

a denoising subsystem coupled to the voice detection subsystem, the denoising subsystem including microphones coupled to provide acoustic signals of an environment to components of the denoising subsystem, a configuration of the microphones including two unidirectional microphones separated by a distance and having an angle between maximums of a spatial response curve of each microphone, components of the denoising subsystem automatically selecting at least one denoising method appropriate to data of at least one frequency subband of the acoustic signals using the control signals and processing the acoustic signals using the selected denoising method to generate denoised acoustic signals, wherein the denoising method includes generating a noise waveform estimate associated with noise of the acoustic signals and subtracting the noise waveform estimate from the acoustic signal when the acoustic signal includes speech and noise.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the distance is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 15 centimeters.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the angle is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 180 degrees.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises:

at least one glottal electromagnetic micropower sensor (GEMS) including at least one antenna for receiving the voice activity signals; and

at least one voice activity detector (VAD) algorithm for processing the GEMS voice activity signals and generating the control signals.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises:

at least one accelerometer sensor in contact with skin of a user for receiving the voice activity signals; and

at least one voice activity detector (VAD) algorithm for processing the accelerometer sensor voice activity signals and generating the control signals.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises:

at least one skin-surface microphone sensor in contact with skin of a user for receiving the voice activity signals; and

at least one voice activity detector (VAD) algorithm for processing the skin-surface microphone sensor voice activity signals and generating the control signals.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the voice detection subsystem receives voice activity signals via couplings with the microphones.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises:

two unidirectional microphones separated by a distance and having an angle between maximums of a spatial response curve of each microphone, wherein the distance is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 15 centimeters and wherein the angle is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 180 degrees; and

at least one voice activity detector (VAD) algorithm for processing the voice activity signals and generating the control signals.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises at least one manually activated voice activity detector (VAD) for generating the voice activity signals.

10. The system of claim 1, further including a portable handset that includes the microphones, wherein the portable handset includes at least one of cellular telephones, satellite telephones, portable telephones, wireline telephones, Internet telephones, wireless transceivers, wireless communication radios, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and personal computers (PCs).

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the portable handset includes at least one of the voice detection subsystem and the denoising subsystem.

12. The system of claim 1, further including a portable headset that includes the microphones along with at least one speaker device.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the portable headset couples to at least one communication device selected from among cellular telephones, satellite telephones, portable telephones, wireline telephones, Internet telephones, wireless transceivers, wireless communication radios, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and personal computers (PCs).

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the portable headset couples to the communication device using at least one of wireless couplings, wired couplings, and combination wireless and wired couplings.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the communication device includes at least one of the voice detection subsystem and the denoising subsystem.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the portable headset includes at least one of the voice detection subsystem and the denoising subsystem.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the portable headset is a portable communication device selected from among cellular telephones, satellite telephones, portable telephones, wireline telephones, Internet telephones, wireless transceivers, wireless communication radios, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and personal computers (PCs).

18. A communications system, comprising:

a voice detection subsystem receiving voice activity signals that include information of human voicing activity and automatically generating control signals using information of the voice activity signals; and

a denoising subsystem coupled to the voice detection subsystem, the denoising subsystem including microphones coupled to provide acoustic signals of an environment to components of the denoising subsystem, a configuration of the microphones including an omnidirectional microphone and a unidirectional microphone separated by a distance, components of the denoising subsystem automatically selecting at least one denoising method appropriate to data of at least one frequency subband of the acoustic signals using the control signals and processing the acoustic signals using the selected denoising method to generate denoised acoustic signals, wherein the denoising method includes generating a noise waveform estimate associated with noise of the acoustic signals and subtracting the noise waveform estimate from the acoustic signal when the acoustic signal includes speech and noise.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the distance is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 15 centimeters.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the omnidirectional microphone is oriented to capture signals from at least one speech signal source and the unidirectional microphone is oriented to capture signals from at least one noise signal source, wherein an angle between the speech signal source and a maximum of a spatial response curve of the unidirectional microphone is approximately in the range of 45 to 180 degrees.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises:

at least one glottal electromagnetic micropower sensor (GEMS) including at least one antenna for receiving the voice activity signals; and

at least one voice activity detector (VAD) algorithm for processing the GEMS voice activity signals and generating the control signals.

22. The system of claim 18, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises:

at least one accelerometer sensor in contact with skin of a user for receiving the voice activity signals; and

at least one voice activity detector (VAD) algorithm for processing the accelerometer sensor voice activity signals and generating the control signals.

23. The system of claim 18, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises:

at least one skin-surface microphone sensor in contact with skin of a user for receiving the voice activity signals; and

at least one voice activity detector (VAD) algorithm for processing the skin-surface microphone sensor voice activity signals and generating the control signals.

24. The system of claim 18, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises:

two unidirectional microphones separated by a distance and having an angle between maximums of a spatial response curve of each microphone, wherein the distance is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 15 centimeters and wherein the angle is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 180 degrees; and

at least one voice activity detector (VAD) algorithm for processing the voice activity signals and generating the control signals.

25. The system of claim 18, wherein the voice detection subsystem further comprises at least one manually activated voice activity detector (VAD) for generating the voice activity signals.

26. The system of claim 18, further including a portable handset that includes the microphones, wherein the portable handset includes at least one of cellular telephones, satellite telephones, portable telephones, wireline telephones, Internet telephones, wireless transceivers, wireless communication radios, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and personal computers (PCs).

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the portable handset includes at least one of the voice detection subsystem and the denoising subsystem.

28. The system of claim 18, further including a portable headset that includes the microphones along with at least one speaker device.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the portable headset couples to at least one communication device selected from among cellular telephones, satellite telephones, portable telephones, wireline telephones, Internet telephones, wireless transceivers, wireless communication radios, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and personal computers (PCs).

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the portable headset couples to the communication device using at least one of wireless couplings, wired couplings, and combination wireless and wired couplings.

31. The system of claim 29, wherein the communication device includes at least one of the voice detection subsystem and the denoising subsystem.

32. The system of claim 28, wherein the portable headset includes at least one of the voice detection subsystem and the denoising subsystem.

33. The system of claim 28, wherein the portable headset is a portable communication device selected from among cellular telephones, satellite telephones, portable telephones, wireline telephones, Internet telephones, wireless transceivers, wireless communication radios, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and personal computers (PCs).

34. A communications system, comprising:

at least one transceiver for use in a communications network;

a voice detection subsystem receiving voice activity signals that include information of human voicing activity and automatically generating control signals using information of the voice activity signals; and

a denoising subsystem coupled to the voice detection subsystem, the denoising subsystem including microphones coupled to provide acoustic signals of an environment to components of the denoising subsystem, a configuration of the microphones including a first microphone and a second microphone separated by a distance and having an angle between maximums of a spatial response curve of each microphone, components of the denoising subsystem automatically selecting at least one denoising method appropriate to data of at least one frequency subband of the acoustic signals using the control signals and processing the acoustic signals using the selected denoising method to generate denoised acoustic signals, wherein the denoising method includes generating a noise waveform estimate associated with noise of the acoustic signals and subtracting the noise waveform estimate from the acoustic signal when the acoustic signal includes speech and noise.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein each of the first and second microphones is a unidirectional microphone, wherein the distance is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 15 centimeters and the angle is approximately in the range of zero (0) to 180 degrees.

36. The system of claim 34, wherein the first microphone is an omnidirectional microphone and the second microphone is a unidirectional microphone, wherein the first microphone is oriented to capture signals from at least one speech signal source and the second microphone is oriented to capture signals from at least one noise signal source, wherein an angle between the speech signal source and a maximum of a spatial response curve of the second microphone is approximately in the range of 45 to 180 degrees.

37. The system of claim 34, wherein the transceiver includes the first and second microphones.

38. The system of claim 34, wherein the transceiver couples information between the communications network and a user via a headset.

39. The system of claim 38, wherein the headset includes the first and second microphones.