US 9,432,769 B1Granted

Method and system for beam selection in microphone array beamformers

AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.

InventorsShiva Sundaram, Amit Singh Chhetri, Ramya Gopalan, Philip Ryan Hilmes

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Abstract

Embodiments of systems and methods are described for determining which of a plurality of beamformed audio signals to select for signal processing. In some embodiments, a plurality of audio input signals are received from a microphone array comprising a plurality of microphones. A plurality of beamformed audio signals are determined based on the plurality of input audio signals, the beamformed audio signals comprising a direction. A plurality of signal features may be determined for each beamformed audio signal. Smoothed features may be determined for each beamformed audio signal based on at least a portion of the plurality of signal features. The beamformed audio signal corresponding to the maximum smoothed feature may be selected for further processing.

Claims21

Dependent claims

An apparatus comprising:

a microphone array comprising a plurality of microphones and configured to determine a plurality of audio input signals;
one or more processors in communication with the microphone array, the one or more processors configured to:
determine a plurality of beamformed audio signals based on the plurality of audio input signals, each of the plurality of beamformed audio signals corresponding to a direction, the plurality of beamformed audio signals comprising a first beamformed audio signal;
determine, for the first beamformed audio signal, a signal feature value for a signal feature;
obtain a previously determined signal feature value for a previously determined beamformed audio signal, wherein the previously determined signal feature value corresponds to the signal feature;
determine, for the first beamformed audio signal, a smoothed signal feature value based on the signal feature value and the previously determined signal feature value;
determine, for the first beamformed audio signal, a score corresponding to a presence of speech in the first beamformed audio signal;
and
select first beamformed audio signal for further processing using the smoothed signal feature value and the score.

6 more elements

A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of audio input signals from a microphone array comprising a plurality of microphones;
determining a plurality of beamformed audio signals based on the plurality of audio input signals, each of the plurality of beamformed audio signals corresponding to a direction, the plurality of beamformed audio signals comprising a first beamformed audio signal;
determining, for the first beamformed audio signal, a signal feature value for a signal feature;
obtaining a previously determined signal feature value for a previously determined beamformed audio signal, wherein the previously determined signal feature value corresponds to the signal feature;
determining, for the first beamformed audio signal, a smoothed signal feature value based on the signal feature value and the previously determined signal feature value;
and
selecting the first beamformed audio signal for further processing using the smoothed signal feature value.

4 more elements

One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executable instructions to:

receive a plurality of audio input signals from a microphone array comprising a plurality of microphones;
determine a plurality of beamformed audio signals based on the plurality of audio input signals, each of the plurality of beamformed audio signals corresponding to a direction, the plurality of beamformed audio signals comprising a first beamformed audio signal;
determine, for the first beamformed audio signal, a signal feature value for a signal feature;
obtain a previously determined signal feature value for a previously determined beamformed audio signal, wherein the previously determined signal feature value corresponds to the signal feature;
determine, for the first beamformed audio signal, a smoothed signal feature value based on the signal feature value and the previously determined signal feature value;
and
select the first beamformed audio signal for further processing using the smoothed signal feature value.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.