Intelligent beam steering in microphone array

A speaker system comprising:

• a microphone array;
• and
• a control system connected with the microphone array, the control system programmed to:
• generate an acoustic map comprising an acoustic description of a physical environment proximate the speaker system, wherein generating the acoustic map comprises:
• receiving a set of acoustic signals from the physical environment at the microphone array;
• identifying at least one noise source from the set of received acoustic signals;
• creating a microphone array filter configured to at least partially reject the at least one noise source,
• wherein creating the set of microphone array filters comprises categorizing the set of received acoustic signals according to at least one of frequency or amplitude, and correlating control instructions for modifying a gain on the microphone array with the categorized set of received acoustic signals;
• and
• storing the microphone array filter in a library of microphone array filters;
• and
• focus the microphone array in a direction based upon the acoustic map prior to receiving a voice command input at the microphone array.

A computer-implemented method of controlling a microphone array in a portable speaker system, the method comprising:

• generating an acoustic map comprising an acoustic description of a physical environment proximate the speaker system;
• and
• focusing the microphone array in a direction based upon the acoustic map prior to receiving a voice command input at the microphone array;
• wherein generating the acoustic map comprises:
• detecting a location of at least one noise source in the physical environment;
• and
• creating a microphone array filter configured to at least partially reject the at least one noise source;
• detecting movement of the speaker system from a first physical location to a second physical location;
• generating an updated acoustic map comprising an acoustic description of a physical environment proximate the speaker system at the second physical location;
• and
• focusing the microphone array in an updated direction based upon the updated acoustic map prior to receiving a subsequent voice command input at the microphone array.