Dual microphone near field voice enhancement

A dual microphone near field voice enhancement method for a motor vehicle, the method comprising:

• providing a seat including a headrest in the motor vehicle, the headrest having two opposite lateral sides;
• mounting each of two microphones on a respective one of the two opposite lateral sides of the headrest;
• producing a respective microphone signal from each of the microphones, the microphone signals being indicative of sounds within a passenger compartment of the motor vehicle;
• calculating a time delay between the microphone signals;
• using the calculated time delay to estimate amplitudes of the microphone signals;
• applying a respective time delay to each of the microphone signals based on the calculated time delay to produce two time-aligned signals;
• applying a respective gain to each of the time-aligned microphone signals based on the estimated amplitudes to produce two time-aligned and gain corrected signals;
• and
• summing the time-aligned and gain corrected signals.

A dual microphone near field voice enhancement arrangement in a motor vehicle, the arrangement comprising:

• two microphones, a first said microphone being mounted to the left of a human driver of the motor vehicle, and a second said microphone being mounted to the right of the human driver, each said microphone being configured to produce a respective microphone signal indicative of sounds within a passenger compartment of the motor vehicle;
• an electronic processor communicatively coupled to the microphones and configured to:
• receive the microphone signals;
• calculate a time delay between the microphone signals;
• use the calculated time delay to estimate amplitudes of the microphone signals;
• apply a respective time delay to each of the microphone signals based on the calculated time delay to produce two time-aligned signals;
• apply a respective gain to each of the time-aligned microphone signals based on the estimated amplitudes to produce two time-aligned and gain corrected signals;
• and
• sum the time-aligned and gain corrected signals;
• and
• a loudspeaker communicatively coupled to the electronic processor and configured to emit audible sounds based on the sum of the gain corrected signals.