Microphone array
AssigneeFujitsu Limited
InventorNaoshi Matsuo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention provides a microphone array including a small number of real microphone that can realize the same characteristics as a microphone array including a large number of real microphones. The microphone array of the present invention includes a plurality of real microphones, at least one virtual microphone, and an estimator for estimating a sound signal to be received by the virtual microphone based on the sound signals received by the real microphones.
Claims7
A microphone array comprising a plurality of real microphones arranged in predetermined positions, at least one virtual microphone, and a sound signal estimator for estimating a sound signal received by the virtual microphone,
- wherein the sound signal estimator comprises:
- a sound signal divider for dividing a sound signal, that is one of several sound signals coming from an arbitrary number of sound sources in arbitrary directions and is received by a predetermined one of the real microphones, into components by using wave equations, each component corresponding to one coordinate axis direction in a coordinate system defined on the basis of positions of the plurality of real microphones;
- a sound signal component estimator for estimating a virtual microphone sound signal component corresponding to a predetermined coordinate axis direction in the coordinate system, based on the sound signal received by the predetermined real microphone and the sound signal component corresponding to the predetermined coordinate axis direction divided by the sound signal divider;
- and
- a sound signal component adder for adding the sound signal component corresponding to the coordinate axis direction divided by the sound signal divider and the sound signal component corresponding to the coordinate axis direction estimated by the sound signal component estimator.
A microphone array including a plurality of real microphones in a row, the array comprising:
- a sound signal divider for dividing a sound signal, that is one of several sound signals coming to the array from an arbitrary number of sound sources in arbitrary directions and received by the plurality of real microphones,
- the sound signal divider dividing a sound signal received by a predetermined one of the real microphones into components, by using wave equations, each component corresponding to one coordinate axis direction in a coordinate system defined on the basis of the positions of the plurality of real microphones,
- where one axis of the coordinate system is in a first direction along the row of real microphones, and another axis is in a direction perpendicular to the first direction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.