Apparatus and Method for Beamforming to Obtain Voice and Noise Signals

A method comprising:

• beamforming a plurality of microphone outputs to obtain a plurality of virtual microphone audio channels, each virtual microphone audio channel corresponding to a beamform, comprising at least one voice channel and at least one noise channel;
• performing voice activity detection on the at least one voice channel;
• and
• adjusting a corresponding voice beamform until voice activity detection indicates that voice is present on the at least one voice channel.

A method comprising:

• beamforming a plurality of microphone outputs to obtain a plurality of virtual microphone audio channels, each virtual microphone audio channel corresponding to a beamform, comprising at least one voice channel and at least one noise channel;
• performing voice recognition on the at least one voice channel;
• and
• adjusting the corresponding voice beamform to improve a voice recognition confidence metric of the voice recognition.

An apparatus comprising:

• a beamformer, operatively coupled to a plurality of microphone outputs, the beamformer operative to provide, as beamformer outputs, a plurality of virtual microphone audio channels each virtual microphone audio channel corresponding to a beamform, comprising at least one voice channel and at least one noise channel;
• a beamformer controller, operatively coupled to the beamformer, the beamformer controller operative to:
• monitor the at least one voice channel and the at least one noise channel to determine if voice is present on either of the at least one voice channel or the at least one noise channel;
• and
• control the beamformer to adjust a beamform corresponding to the at least one voice channel until voice is present on the at least one voice channel.