Echo Analysis for Telephone Conference Command Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Telephone conference systems often mistakenly interpret echoes of voice or DTMF commands as actual commands, leading to unintended actions affecting conference participants, particularly when disconnect signals are involved.
Innovation Solution
A method to differentiate between real events and echoes in multiple sound streams by categorizing events based on energy levels and timing, using separate buffers for each channel and comparing energy levels across channels to identify and ignore echo events.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If echo signals are not filtered out, then the system can detect all sound events including real commands, but the system mistakenly processes echo events as real commands causing unintended actions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the audio processing by maintaining separate buffers for each channel and analyzing echo patterns channel-by-channel. The echo watcher divides the conference audio into individual channel streams, allowing targeted echo detection and suppression for each participant's audio feed without affecting others.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary echo analysis mechanism that sits between the audio input and command processing. The echo watcher acts as a mediator that pre-processes audio signals, identifies echo patterns, and filters them before they reach the command interpretation system, preventing false command activation.
2Productivity
If the system processes all detected events, then no real commands are missed, but processing time and computational resources increase due to analyzing echo events
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by performing echo detection and filtering before command processing. The echo watcher continuously monitors audio streams in advance, pre-identifies echo patterns, and marks them for suppression, so that the main command processing system receives only validated real commands, reducing its processing burden.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts and removes echo events from the processing stream. The echo watcher identifies echo patterns and extracts them separately, then suppresses them from being passed to the command interpretation system, allowing the main processing pipeline to focus only on genuine commands.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Effectively reduces instances of processing echoes as actual commands, preventing unintended actions and maintaining the integrity of telephone conferences.
Implementation Method 1
Telephone networks are typically terminated by analog or circuit switched trunks that produce audio reflections, also known as echoes.
Implementation Method 2
each event is categorized as a real event or as an echo event based at least in part on one or more of the event's characteristics... categorizing is performed as follows: (1) the event is categorized as an echo event if another event of the same type as the event was categorized as a real event within a first predetermined time period of detection of the event
Data Source
AI summary
Apparatus, methods, and machine-readable articles of manufacture enable a telephone system to distinguish between actual events and echoes. Events may include conferees' voice and DTMF commands. In selected embodiments, the system categorizes an event received on one channel as a real event if the energy of the event's waveform is greater than concurrent energy of every other channel of the same conference. Otherwise, the event is stored. When the system receives a new event of the same type on a channel of the same conference during a predetermined period, it compares the energies of the new and stored events. If the energy of the new event exceeds that of the stored event, the new event becomes the stored event, and the old stored event is ignored. At the end of the period, the stored event is categorized as a real event and forwarded to appropriate application code.