US 10,051,366 B1 · Three-dimensional beam forming with a microphone array

Abstract

Systems and methods for three-dimensional beamforming disclosed herein include, among other features (i) generating a set of received-sound beams by applying a plurality of sets of beamforming coefficients stored in a tangible memory of the network device to sound received via a microphone array of the network device, wherein each received-sound beam corresponds to a separate direction relative to the microphone array, (ii) identifying a subset of the received-sound beams comprising speech content, (iii) for each received-sound beam in the subset of the received-sound beams comprising speech content, determining whether the speech content comprises a wake word, (iv) selecting one final received-sound beam from the received-sound beams in the subset of the received-sound beams determined to comprise a wake word; and (v) causing the selected one final received-sound beam to be processed to identify a voice command.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A network device comprising:

one or more processors;
a microphone array;
and
tangible, non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions encoded therein, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the network device to perform a method comprising:
generating a set of received-sound beams by applying a plurality of sets of beamforming coefficients stored in the tangible, non-transitory computer-readable memory to sound received via the microphone array, wherein each received-sound beam corresponds to a separate direction relative to the microphone array;
identifying a subset of the received-sound beams comprising speech content;
for each received-sound beam in the subset of the received-sound beams comprising speech content, determining whether the speech content comprises a wake word;
selecting one final received-sound beam from the received-sound beams in the subset of the received-sound beams determined to comprise a wake word;
and
causing the selected one final received-sound beam to be processed to identify a voice command.

7 more elements

Tangible, non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions encoded therein, wherein the instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause a network device to perform a method comprising:

generating a set of received-sound beams by applying a plurality of sets of beamforming coefficients stored in a tangible memory of the network device to sound received via a microphone array of the network device, wherein each received-sound beam corresponds to a separate direction relative to the microphone array;
identifying a subset of the received-sound beams comprising speech content;
for each received-sound beam in the subset of the received-sound beams comprising speech content, determining whether the speech content comprises a wake word;
selecting one final received-sound beam from the received-sound beams in the subset of the received-sound beams determined to comprise a wake word;
and
causing the selected one final received-sound beam to be processed to identify a voice command.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Three-dimensional beam forming with a microphone array

Life of this patent

Three-dimensional beam forming with a microphone array

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20