Acoustic echo cancellation for audio system with bring your own devices (BYOD)

An apparatus comprising:

• at least one loudspeaker configured to project audio from a speaker signal into a room associated with a conference session;
• a plurality of microphones configured to capture audio from corresponding positions in the room and generate a plurality of array microphone signals;
• and
• a controller configured to:
• receive at least one audio signal associated with the conference session;
• receive the plurality of array microphone signals;
• generate the speaker signal from the at least one audio signal and the plurality of array microphone signals;
• correlate the speaker signal with network timing information to generate speaker timing information;
• transmit the speaker signal with the speaker timing information via a network to a mobile device that is participating in the conference session to enable the mobile device to generate an echo cancelled microphone signal from a microphone of the mobile device;
• receive the echo cancelled remote microphone signal;
• remove an acoustic echo from the plurality of array microphone signals to generate a plurality of echo cancelled array microphone signals;
• estimate a relative location of the mobile device with respect to one or more of the plurality of array microphones;
• pair the mobile device with one or more of the plurality of array microphones based on the relative location of the mobile device;
• and
• dynamically select as audio output for the mobile device either (a) the echo cancelled array microphone signal associated with the one or more array microphones to which the mobile device is paired or (b) the echo cancelled microphone signal derived from the microphone of the mobile device.

One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media encoded with software comprising computer executable instructions and when the software is executed operable to cause a processor to:

• receive at least one audio signal associated with a conference session;
• receive a plurality of array microphone signals associated with an array of microphones at corresponding known positions in a room of the conference session;
• generate a speaker signal from the at least one audio signal and the plurality of array microphone signals;
• correlate the speaker signal with network timing information to generate speaker timing information;
• transmit the speaker signal with the speaker timing information via a network to a mobile device that is participating in the conference session to enable the mobile device to generate an echo cancelled microphone signal from a microphone of the mobile device;
• receive the echo cancelled remote microphone signal;
• remove an acoustic echo from the plurality of array microphone signals to generate a plurality of echo cancelled array microphone signals;
• estimate a relative location of the mobile device with respect to one or more of the plurality of array microphones;
• pair the mobile device with one or more of the plurality of array microphones based on the relative location of the mobile device;
• and
• dynamically select as audio output for the mobile device either (a) the echo cancelled array microphone signal associated with the one or more array microphones to which the mobile device is paired or (b) the echo cancelled microphone signal derived from the microphone of the mobile device.

A method comprising:

• at a mobile device, receiving a speaker signal with corresponding speaker timing information from a conference server;
• correlating a microphone signal at the mobile device with network timing information to generate microphone timing information;
• aligning the microphone signal with the speaker signal using the speaker timing information and the microphone timing information;
• at the mobile device, removing an acoustic echo present in the microphone signal based on alignment of the microphone signal with the speaker signal to generate an echo cancelled microphone signal;
• and
• transmitting the echo cancelled microphone signal from the mobile device to the conference server.