System and method of optimizing a beamformer for echo control
US9508357B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 21, 2014 |
| Grant date | Nov 29, 2016 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 25, 2035 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG10L2021/02166
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Apparatus for optimizing beamformers for echo control comprises microphones to receive acoustic signals, echo cancellers (ECs) respectively coupled to the microphones to adaptively cancel echo in the acoustic signals and to generate EC-acoustic signals, and a first fixed beamformer coupled to the ECs to receive the EC-acoustic signals. The null of the first beamformer is steered in a direction of a first environmental noise source that is determined offline by exciting the ECs with normal speech signals and audio playback signals to cause the ECs to generate test EC-acoustic signals, and selecting the first environmental noise source based on loudness weighted centroids of noise in the test EC-acoustic signals. Apparatus may also include a residual echo suppressor coupled to the first fixed beamformer to perform echo suppression on output of the first fixed beamformer and to generate clean signal. Other embodiments are also described.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.