Systems and methods of detecting speech activity of headphone user
AssigneeBose Corporation
InventorsXiang-Ern Yeo, Mehmet Ergezer, Alaganandan Ganeshkumar
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A headphone system is provided that includes a first earpiece, a first front microphone coupled to the first earpiece to receive a first acoustic signal, a first rear microphone coupled to the first earpiece to receive a second acoustic signal, the second acoustic signal being toward the rear of a user's head relative to the first acoustic signal, and a detection circuit coupled to the first front and rear microphones and configured to compare a front signal derived from the first front microphone to a rear signal derived from the first rear microphone and to selectively indicate that the user is speaking based at least in part upon the comparison.
Claims17
A headphone system, comprising:
- a first earpiece;
- a first front microphone coupled to the first earpiece to receive a first acoustic signal;
- a first rear microphone coupled to the first earpiece to receive a second acoustic signal, the second acoustic signal being toward the rear of a user's head relative to the first acoustic signal;
- and
- a detection circuit coupled to the first front and rear microphones and configured to compare a front signal derived from the first front microphone to a rear signal derived from the first rear microphone and to selectively indicate that the user is speaking based at least in part upon the comparison, the detection circuit being further configured to process both a principal signal and a reference signal through a smoothing algorithm, the principal signal derived from the front signal and the reference signal derived from the rear signal, the smoothing algorithm configured to calculate a principal power signal from a decaying weighted average of power of the principal signal over time, to calculate a reference power signal from a decaying weighted average of power of the reference signal over time, and to selectively indicate that the user is speaking based at least in part upon a comparison between the principle power signal and the reference power signal.
A method of determining that a headphone user is speaking, the method comprising:
- receiving a first signal derived from a first microphone configured to receive acoustic signals near a front side of the headphone;
- receiving a second signal derived from a second microphone configured to receive acoustic signals near a rear side of the headphone;
- providing a principal signal derived from the first signal;
- providing a reference signal derived from the second signal;
- processing the principal signal through a smoothing algorithm configured to calculate a principal power signal from a decaying weighted average of power of the principal signal over time;
- processing the reference signal through the smoothing algorithm to calculate a reference power signal from a decaying weighted average of power of the reference signal over time;
- comparing the principal power signal to the reference power signal;
- and
- selectively indicating that a user is speaking based at least in part upon the comparison.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.