OPERATING METHOD FOR MICROPHONES AND ELECTRONIC DEVICE SUPPORTING THE SAME

• US 20170278515A1
• Filed: 06/09/2017
• Published: 09/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: LEE, Sang Hoon, KIM, Kyung Tae, SUBHOJIT, Chakladar, JUNG, Seok Yeong
• Granted Patent: US 10,062,382 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/165 Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/20 Speech recognition techniques specially adapted for robustness in adverse environments, e.g. in noise, of stress induced speech G10L21/02 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/28 Constructional details of speech recognition systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2021/02082 the noise being echo, reverberation of the speech
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2021/02166 Microphone arrays; Beamforming
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0208 Noise filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2499/11 Transducers incorporated or for use in hand-held devices, e.g. mobile phones, PDA's, camera's
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/005 for combining the signals of two or more microphones specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

An electronic device which includes a plurality of microphones and an audio data processing module is provided. The plurality of microphones is operatively coupled to the electronic device, and the audio data processing module is capable of being implemented with at least one processor. The audio data processing module recognizes a specified command, based on first audio data collected using a portion of the plurality of microphones and executes a function or an application corresponding to second audio data collected using all the plurality of microphones, when the specified command is recognized.

Claims

1. An electronic device comprising:

a plurality of microphones operatively coupled to the electronic device;

a first voice recognition module configured to recognize a specified command through voice recognition of first audio data collected using a first set of the plurality of microphones;

a multi-channel audio signal processing module configured to perform a specified audio process associated with a multi-channel audio signal corresponding to a second set of the plurality of microphones, wherein the second set comprises at least two microphones and a number of microphones of the second set is larger than a number of microphones of the first set; and

one or more processors configured to execute a function or an application corresponding to second audio data collected using the second set of the plurality of microphones when the specified command is recognized,

wherein the electronic device further comprises one of;

an audio codec at which the first voice recognition module and the multi-channel audio signal processing module are disposed;

an audio codec at which the first voice recognition module is disposed, wherein the one or more processor at which the multi-channel audio signal processing module is disposed;

a low-power processing module at which the first voice recognition module is disposed, wherein the one or more processor at which the multi-channel audio signal processing module is disposed;

or

a low-power processing module at which the first voice recognition module are disposed, and an audio codec at which the multi-channel signal processing module is disposed.

2. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising

a second voice recognition module configured to:

perform voice recognition of the second audio data, and

execute the function or the application corresponding to the voice recognition result.

3. The electronic device of claim 2,

wherein the first voice recognition module comprises a first processor operatively coupled to the portion of the plurality of microphones, and

wherein the second voice recognition module comprises a second processor operatively coupled to the plurality of microphones.

4. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the first voice recognition module activates at least one of a remaining microphone of the plurality of microphones other than the portion of the plurality of microphones or the multi-channel signal processing module corresponding to the recognition of the specified command.

5. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the multi-channel signal processing module comprises at least one of:

a sound source direction detecting unit configured to recognize a sound source direction of the multi-channel audio signal based on positions of microphones corresponding to the multi-channel audio signal;

a beam forming unit configured to adjust a parameter of the multi-channel audio signal so as to adjust an input gain of a specific direction;

a noise suppression unit configured to adjust a parameter of the multi-channel audio signal so as to suppress receiving of a sound source of a specific direction associated with a noise;

or

an echo cancellation unit configured to cancel an echo component included in the multi-channel audio signal.

6. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the first voice recognition module determines whether the first audio data comprises at least one of utterance character information or speaker classification information corresponding to the specified command

7. A microphone operating method for mobile electronic device comprising:

collecting first audio data using a first set of a plurality of microphones operatively coupled to an electronic device;

recognizing, by a first voice recognition module, a specified command through voice recognition of the first audio data collected using the first set of the plurality of microphones;

performing, by a multi-channel signal processing module, a specified audio process associated with a multi-channel audio signal corresponding to a second set of the plurality of microphones, wherein the second set comprises at least two microphones and a number of microphones of the second set is larger than a number of microphones of the first set; and

executing, by one or more processors, a function or an application, corresponding to second audio data collected using the second set of the plurality of microphones when the specified command is recognized.

8. The microphone operating method of claim 7, further comprising at least one of:

wherein the executing of the function or the application comprises;

performing a second voice recognition operation of performing the function or the application, through voice recognition of the second audio data.

9. The microphone operating method of claim 8, further comprising at least one of:

performing the first voice recognition operation by a first processor operatively coupled to the portion of the plurality of microphones;

or

performing the second voice recognition operation by a second processor operatively coupled to all of the plurality of microphones.

10. The microphone operating method of claim 8, further comprising at least one of:

activating at least one of a remaining microphone of the plurality of microphones other than the portion of the plurality of microphones according to recognition of the specified command;

or

processing the multi-channel audio signal according to the recognition of the specified command.

11. The microphone operating method of claim 8, further comprising at least one of:

determining a sound source direction of the multi-channel audio signal, based on positions where microphones corresponding to the multi-channel audio signal are disposed;

adjusting a parameter of the multi-channel audio signal so as to tune an input gain of a specific direction;

adjusting a parameter of the multi-channel audio signal so as to suppress receiving of a sound source of a specific direction associated with a noise;

or

cancelling an echo component included in the multi-channel audio signal.

12. The microphone operating method of claim 8, wherein the first voice recognition operation comprises:

determining whether the first audio data comprises at least one of utterance character information or speaker classification information corresponding to the specified command.

13. The microphone operating method of claim 8, further comprising:

transferring a command, set to process the multi-channel audio signal, to a multi-channel processing module according to the recognition of the specified command or specific audio data.

14. The microphone operating method of claim 8, further comprising at least one of:

setting at least one of the single channel signal processing operation or the multi-channel signal processing operation to an audio codec;

or

setting the second voice recognition operation to an audio data processing module.