System and method for filtering and eliminating noise from natural language utterances to improve speech recognition and parsing
DCFirst Claim
1. A method for filtering and eliminating noise from natural language utterances, comprising:
- receiving a natural language utterance at a microphone array that adds one or more nulls to a beam pattern steered to point in a direction associated with a user speaking the natural language utterance, wherein the one or more nulls notch out point or limited area noise sources from an input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance;
comparing environmental noise to the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance to set one or more parameters associated with an adaptive filter coupled to the microphone array;
passing the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance to the adaptive filter, wherein the adaptive filter uses band shaping and notch filtering to remove narrow-band noise from the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance according to the one or more parameters;
suppressing cross-talk and environmentally caused echoes in the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance using adaptive echo cancellation in the adaptive filter;
sending the input speech signal passed through the adaptive filter to a speech coder that uses adaptive lossy audio compression to remove momentary gaps from the input speech signal and variable rate sampling to compress and digitize the input speech signal, wherein the speech coder optimizes the adaptive lossy audio compression and the variable rate sampling to only preserve components in the input speech signal that will be input to a speech recognition engine; and
transmitting the digitized input speech signal from a buffer in the speech coder to the speech recognition engine, wherein the speech coder transmits the digitized input speech signal to the speech recognition engine at a rate that depends on available bandwidth between the speech coder and the speech recognition engine.
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Abstract
The systems and methods described herein may filter and eliminate noise from natural language utterances to improve accuracy associated with speech recognition and parsing capabilities. In particular, the systems and methods described herein may use a microphone array to provide directional signal capture, noise elimination, and cross-talk reduction associated with an input speech signal. Furthermore, a filter arranged between the microphone array and a speech coder may use band shaping, notch filtering, and adaptive echo cancellation to optimize a signal-to-noise ratio associated with the speech signal. The speech signal may then be sent to the speech coder, which may use adaptive lossy audio compression to optimize bandwidth requirements associated with transmitting the speech signal to a main unit that provides the speech recognition, parsing, and other natural language processing capabilities.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A method for filtering and eliminating noise from natural language utterances, comprising:
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receiving a natural language utterance at a microphone array that adds one or more nulls to a beam pattern steered to point in a direction associated with a user speaking the natural language utterance, wherein the one or more nulls notch out point or limited area noise sources from an input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance; comparing environmental noise to the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance to set one or more parameters associated with an adaptive filter coupled to the microphone array; passing the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance to the adaptive filter, wherein the adaptive filter uses band shaping and notch filtering to remove narrow-band noise from the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance according to the one or more parameters; suppressing cross-talk and environmentally caused echoes in the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance using adaptive echo cancellation in the adaptive filter; sending the input speech signal passed through the adaptive filter to a speech coder that uses adaptive lossy audio compression to remove momentary gaps from the input speech signal and variable rate sampling to compress and digitize the input speech signal, wherein the speech coder optimizes the adaptive lossy audio compression and the variable rate sampling to only preserve components in the input speech signal that will be input to a speech recognition engine; and transmitting the digitized input speech signal from a buffer in the speech coder to the speech recognition engine, wherein the speech coder transmits the digitized input speech signal to the speech recognition engine at a rate that depends on available bandwidth between the speech coder and the speech recognition engine. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A system for filtering and eliminating noise from natural language speech utterances, comprising:
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a microphone array configured to add one or more nulls to a beam pattern steered to point in a direction associated with a user speaking a natural language utterance to capture an input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance, wherein the one or more nulls notch out point or limited area noise sources from the input speech signal; an adaptive filter coupled to the microphone array, wherein the adaptive filter is configured to; receive the input speech signal corresponding to the natural language utterance from the microphone array and compare environmental, noise to the input speech signal to set one or more parameters associated with the adaptive filter; use band shaping and notch filtering to remove narrow-band noise from the input speech signal received from the microphone array according to the one or more parameters; and suppress cross-talk and environmentally caused echoes in the input speech signal received from the microphone array using adaptive echo cancellation; a speech coder arranged between the adaptive filter and a speech recognition engine, wherein the speech coder is configured to receive the input speech signal passed through the adaptive filter and use adaptive lossy audio compression to remove momentary gaps from the input speech signal and variable rate sampling to compress and digitize the input speech signal, wherein the speech coder optimizes the adaptive lossy audio compression and the variable rate sampling to only preserve components in the input speech signal that will be input to the speech recognition engine; and a transceiver configured to communicate the digitized input speech signal from a buffer in the speech coder to the speech recognition engine at a rate that depends on available bandwidth associated with a communication link that connects the transceiver and the speech recognition engine. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification