Acoustic Voice Activity Detection (AVAD) for Electronic Systems
First Claim
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1. An acoustic voice activity detection system comprising:
- a first virtual microphone comprising a first combination of a first signal and a second signal, wherein the first signal is received from a first physical microphone and the second signal is received from a second physical microphone;
a filter, wherein the filter is formed by generating a first quantity by applying a calibration to at least one of the first signal and the second signal, generating a second quantity by applying a delay to the first signal, and forming the filter as a ratio of the first quantity to the second quantity; and
a second virtual microphone formed by applying the filter to the first signal to generate a first intermediate signal and summing the first intermediate signal and the second signal, wherein acoustic voice activity of a speaker is determined to be present when an energy ratio of energies of the first virtual microphone and the second virtual microphone is greater than a threshold value.
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Abstract
Acoustic Voice Activity Detection (AVAD) methods and systems are described. The AVAD methods and systems, including corresponding algorithms or programs, use microphones to generate virtual directional microphones which have very similar noise responses and very dissimilar speech responses. The ratio of the energies of the virtual microphones is then calculated over a given window size and the ratio can then be used with a variety of methods to generate a VAD signal. The virtual microphones can be constructed using either an adaptive or a fixed filter.
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Citations
42 Claims
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1. An acoustic voice activity detection system comprising:
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a first virtual microphone comprising a first combination of a first signal and a second signal, wherein the first signal is received from a first physical microphone and the second signal is received from a second physical microphone; a filter, wherein the filter is formed by generating a first quantity by applying a calibration to at least one of the first signal and the second signal, generating a second quantity by applying a delay to the first signal, and forming the filter as a ratio of the first quantity to the second quantity; and a second virtual microphone formed by applying the filter to the first signal to generate a first intermediate signal and summing the first intermediate signal and the second signal, wherein acoustic voice activity of a speaker is determined to be present when an energy ratio of energies of the first virtual microphone and the second virtual microphone is greater than a threshold value. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A device comprising:
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a first physical microphone generating a first signal; a second physical microphone generating a second signal; and a processing component coupled to the first physical microphone and the second physical microphone, the processing component forming a first virtual microphone, the processing component forming a filter that describes a relationship for speech between the first physical microphone and the second physical microphone, the processing component forming a second virtual microphone by applying the filter to the first signal to generate a first intermediate signal, and summing the first intermediate signal and the second signal, the processing component detecting acoustic voice activity of a speaker when an energy ratio of energies of the first virtual microphone and the second virtual microphone is greater than a threshold value. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
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42. A device comprising:
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a headset including at least one loudspeaker, wherein the headset attaches to a region of a human head; a microphone array connected to the headset, the microphone array including a first physical microphone outputting a first signal and a second physical microphone outputting a second signal; and a processing component coupled to the first physical microphone and the second physical microphone, the processing component forming a first virtual microphone, the processing component forming a filter that describes a relationship for speech between the first physical microphone and the second physical microphone, the processing component forming a second virtual microphone by applying the filter to the first signal to generate a first intermediate signal, and summing the first intermediate signal and the second signal, the processing component detecting acoustic voice activity of a speaker when an energy ratio of energies of the first virtual microphone and the second virtual microphone is greater than a threshold value.
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Specification