Vehicle communication system
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A vehicle communication system comprising:
- a plurality of microphones configured to detect audio signals including speech signals of at least one vehicle passenger;
a beamforming unit configured to receive the audio signals from the plurality of microphones and to generate a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to vehicle seat positions;
a mixer combining the audio signal components to produce a resulting speech output signal;
a seat occupancy detecting unit to detect the presence of non-occupied vehicle seats;
a weighting unit configured to determine a weighting for each of the audio signal components, where the weighting unit sets the weighting of audio signal components of non-occupied seats to zero and where the weightings are applied when the audio signal components are combined to produce the resulting speech output signal; and
an output loudspeaker beamforming unit, where the loudspeaker beamforming unit directs the output of loudspeakers only to occupied seat positions.
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Abstract
The present invention relates to a vehicle communication system comprising a plurality of microphones adapted to detect speech signals of different vehicle passengers, a mixer combining the audio signal components of the different microphones to a resulting speech output signal, a weighting unit determining the weighting of the audio signal components for the resulting speech output signal, where the weighting unit determines the weighting of the signal components based upon non-acoustical information about the presence of a vehicle passenger.
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Citations
24 Claims
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1. A vehicle communication system comprising:
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a plurality of microphones configured to detect audio signals including speech signals of at least one vehicle passenger; a beamforming unit configured to receive the audio signals from the plurality of microphones and to generate a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to vehicle seat positions; a mixer combining the audio signal components to produce a resulting speech output signal; a seat occupancy detecting unit to detect the presence of non-occupied vehicle seats; a weighting unit configured to determine a weighting for each of the audio signal components, where the weighting unit sets the weighting of audio signal components of non-occupied seats to zero and where the weightings are applied when the audio signal components are combined to produce the resulting speech output signal; and an output loudspeaker beamforming unit, where the loudspeaker beamforming unit directs the output of loudspeakers only to occupied seat positions.
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2. A method for controlling a speech output of a vehicle communication system, the method comprising:
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detecting speech signals of at least one vehicle passenger using a plurality of microphones, each microphone producing an audio signal; generating a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to a plurality of vehicle seat positions using the audio signals from the microphones; applying a weighting to each of the audio signal components, the weightings based upon a combination of acoustical and non-acoustical information about the presence of vehicle passengers; and combining the weighted audio signal components to generate a resulting speech output signal. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A method of controlling a speech output of a vehicle communication system, the method comprising:
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detecting speech signals of at least one vehicle passenger using a plurality of microphones, each microphone producing an audio signal; generating a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to a plurality of vehicle seat positions using the audio signals from the microphones; applying a weighting to each of the audio signal components, the weightings based upon a combination of acoustical and non-acoustical information about the presence of vehicles passengers; combining the weighted audio signal components to generate a resulting speech output signal; detecting the presence of non-occupied seats, where the weighting of signal components of non-occupied seats is set to zero; and routing the resulting speech output signal to a unit, where the unit directs the output of loudspeakers only to occupied seat positions.
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14. A vehicle communication system comprising:
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a plurality of microphones adapted to detect speech signals of different vehicle passengers, each microphone producing an audio signal; a beamforming unit configured to receive the audio signals from the plurality of microphones and to generate a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to vehicle seat positions; a mixer combining the audio signal components to produce a resulting speech output signal; and a weighting unit determining the weighting of the audio signal components for the resulting speech output signal, where the weighting unit determines the weighting of the signal components based upon a combination of acoustical and non-acoustical information about the presence of a vehicle passenger. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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Specification