MICROPHONE MUTE/UNMUTE NOTIFICATION

• US 20150156598A1
• Filed: 12/03/2013
• Published: 06/04/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: SUN, Haohai, Winsvold, Bjorn
• Granted Patent: US 9,215,543 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2021/02166 Microphone arrays; Beamforming
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/48 specially adapted for particular use
• 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: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/568 audio processing specific to telephonic conferencing, e.g. spatial distribution, mixing of participants echo suppression in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/02; sound field processing per se H04S7/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/569 using the instant speaker's algorithm speech detection per se G10L25/78
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 29/004 for microphones H04R29/007 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 29/008 Visual indication of individual signal levels visual indication of stereophonic sound image H04S7/40

Abstract

A processing system can include a processor that includes circuitry. The circuitry can be configured to: receive far-end and near-end audio signals; detect silence events and voice activities from the audio signals; determine whether an audio event in the audio signals is an interference event or a speaker event based on the detected silence events and voice activities, and further based on localized acoustic source data and faces or motion detected from an image; and generate a mute or unmute indication based on whether the audio event is the interference event or the speaker event. The system can include a near-end microphone array to output the near-end audio signals, one or more far-end microphones to output the far-end audio signals, and one or more cameras to capture the image of the environment.

Claims

1. A processor, comprising circuitry configured to:

receive far-end and near-end audio signals;

detect silence events and voice activities from the audio signals;

determine whether an audio event in the audio signals is an interference event or a speaker event based on the detected silence events and voice activities, and further based on localized acoustic source data and faces or motion detected from an image; and

generate a mute or unmute indication based on whether the audio event is the interference event or the speaker event.

2. The processor according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is further configured to display the mute or unmute indication.

3. The processor according to claim 2, wherein the circuitry is further configured to receive a mute or unmute operation from a user and execute a corresponding mute or unmute state change.

4. The processor according to claim 3, wherein the circuitry is further configured to execute a mute or unmute state change corresponding to the mute or unmute indication after a predetermined amount of time has lapsed during which no mute or unmute operation from a user is received.

5. The processor according to claim 2, wherein the circuitry is further configured to execute a mute or unmute state change corresponding to the mute or unmute without receiving a mute or unmute operation from a user.

6. The processor according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is further configured to generate the localized acoustic source data from the near-end audio signals by executing an acoustic source localization algorithm.

7. The processor according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is further configured to detect the faces or motion from the image of the environment.

8. The processor according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is further configured to cancel and/or suppress acoustic echo and reduce noise from the acoustic signals.

9. The processor according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is further configured to jointly utilize acoustic source localization, acoustic echo cancellation, noise reduction, and face detection to classify near-end events.

10. The processor according to claim 9, wherein the near-end events include silence events, interference events, and speaker events.

11. The processor according to claim 10, wherein the circuitry is configured to generate the mute or unmute indication based on whether a current near-end event of the near-end events is a silence event, an interference event, or speaker event.

12. The processor according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is configured to:

process the acoustic signals for each of a plurality of sequential short-time frames, each having a frame length of 100 ms or less, and

determine a near-end event for each of the frames.

13. The processor according to claim 12, wherein the frame length is 10 ms to 100 ms.

14. The processor according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is further configured to:

receive images of the environment that are captured by cameras, and

detect the faces or motion in the images.

15. The processor according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is further configured to:

receive the near-end acoustic signals from an array of microphones, and

determine sound source positions, as the localized acoustic source data, from the near-end acoustic signals.

16. A processing system, comprising:

a processor including circuitry configured to;

receive far-end and near-end audio signals;

detect silence events and voice activities from the audio signals;

determine whether an audio event in the audio signals is an interference event or a speaker event based on the detected silence events and voice activities, and further based on localized acoustic source data and faces or motion detected from an image; and

generate a mute or unmute indication based on whether the audio event is the interference event or the speaker event,

a near-end microphone array to output the near-end audio signals,

one or more far-end microphones to output the far-end audio signals, and

one or more cameras to capture the image of the environment.

17. The processing system according to claim 16, further comprising:

a display to display the mute or unmute indication.

18. The processing system according to claim 16, further comprising:

a user-interface to accept a user operation to change a mute or unmute state of the processing system.

19. A method, comprising:

receiving far-end and near-end audio signals;

detecting silence events and voice activities from the audio signals;

determining whether an audio event in the audio signals is an interference event or a speaker event based on the detected silence events and voice activities, and further based on localized acoustic source data and faces or motion detected from an image; and

generating a mute or unmute indication based on whether the audio event is the interference event or the speaker event.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium including computer-executable instructions that, when executed by computer processor, causes the computer processor to execute the method according to claim 19.