Voice actuated switching system
First Claim
1. A voice-actuated switching system comprising:
- a plurality of circuits for receiving a plurality of speech signals;
means for selecting at least one of the plurality of speech signals for coupling to an output line, said selecting means selecting for coupling to the output line speech signals that exceed a predetermined minimum threshold;
means for assigning a variable weighting factor to each one of the received speech signals, each weighting factor being assigned responsive to the selecting means for controlling a level that its assigned speech signal is coupled to the output line; and
means for commonly connecting the plurality of received speech signals to the output line, each one of said plurality of speech signals being either gradually added to or removed from the output line in accordance with the assigned weighting factor for each one of said plurality of speech signals.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A voice-actuated switching system connects one or more microphones to an audio line in accordance with the output signal levels from each of the microphones. To reduce the effects of degradation of speech signals due to reverberation and noise pickup, the switching system uses directional microphones housed in a circular enclosure and arranged in a conference array configuration with response patterns aimed outwardly from the center of the enclosure. The switching system also uses a voting algorithm to select for activation the appropriate microphones indicative of the position of one or more people speaking and a variable weighting factor for gradually turning on or off the signal from each activated microphone that is coupled to the audio line. Typically one microphone will be selected to monitor a person speaking. Since its response pattern is normally pointed in the direction of the person speaking, it is less sensitive to speaker echo due to reverberation. If two people are simultaneously speaking on opposite sides of the array of directional microphones, however, two generally opposed microphones are selected, and the amount of reverberation increases only slightly over the amount of reverberation that would be present if just a single microphone were employed.
79 Citations
40 Claims
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1. A voice-actuated switching system comprising:
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a plurality of circuits for receiving a plurality of speech signals; means for selecting at least one of the plurality of speech signals for coupling to an output line, said selecting means selecting for coupling to the output line speech signals that exceed a predetermined minimum threshold; means for assigning a variable weighting factor to each one of the received speech signals, each weighting factor being assigned responsive to the selecting means for controlling a level that its assigned speech signal is coupled to the output line; and means for commonly connecting the plurality of received speech signals to the output line, each one of said plurality of speech signals being either gradually added to or removed from the output line in accordance with the assigned weighting factor for each one of said plurality of speech signals. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A method of connecting speech signals from a plurality of speech circuits to an output line, the method comprising the steps of:
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receiving a plurality of speech signals in the plurality of circuits; selecting at least one of the plurality of speech signals for coupling to an output line, said selecting step selecting for coupling to the output line speech signals that exceed a predetermined minimum threshold; assigning a variable weighting factor to each one of the received speech signals, each weighting factor being assigned responsive to the selecting step for controlling a level that its assigned speech signal is coupled to the output line; commonly connecting the plurality of received speech signals to the output line, and gradually adding or removing each one of said plurality of speech signals from the output line in accordance with the assigned weighting factor for each one of said plurality of speech signals. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
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37. A voice-actuated switching apparatus comprising:
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a plurality of circuits for receiving a plurality of speech signals; means for selecting at least one of the plurality of speech signals for coupling to an output line, said selecting means selecting for coupling to the output line speech signals that exceed a predetermined minimum threshold; means responsive to the selecting means for assigning a variable weighting factor to each one of the received speech signals, each weighting factor controlling a level that its assigned speech signal is coupled to the output line; and means for providing a weighted sum of the plurality of received speech signals to the output line in accordance with the assigned weighting factor for each of the plurality of speech signals. - View Dependent Claims (38, 39)
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40. A voice-actuated switching system comprising:
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a plurality of circuits for receiving a plurality of speech signals; means for selecting at least one of the plurality of speech signals for coupling to an output line, said selecting means identifying a stronger one of the speech signals by comparing the energy level in each of the plurality of received speech signals with the energy level in each other of the plurality of received speech signals; means for assigning a variable weighting factor to each one of the received speech signals, each weighting factor being assigned responsive to the selecting means for controlling a level that its assigned speech signal is coupled to the output line; and means for commonly connecting the plurality of received speech signals to the output line, each of said plurality of speech signals being either gradually added to or removed from the output line in accordance with the assigned weighting factor for each one of said plurality of speech signals.
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Specification