Multi-Microphone Phone Stand Audio Signal Processing
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Solution Overview
Problem
In noisy environments such as vehicles and workplaces, drivers and workers face difficulties in hearing voice calls and audio sessions due to ambient noise, which affects the clarity of communication and the functionality of voice assistants.
Innovation Solution
A phone stand equipped with a plurality of microphones, including a directional microphone positioned near the user, processes sound signals to separate speech and non-speech signals, adjusts their volumes based on input attributes, and combines them to enhance audio clarity, sending the mixed signals to the phone for improved communication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a standard phone microphone is used in a noisy vehicle environment, then the device complexity remains simple, but the speech clarity and signal-to-noise ratio deteriorate significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The audio signal is segmented into speech components and non-speech (noise) components through spectral analysis. The system divides the frequency spectrum into multiple bands and identifies which bands contain speech versus noise, allowing selective processing of different signal portions to enhance speech clarity while suppressing ambient noise.
Solution Approach 2:
An intermediary processing system is introduced between the microphone and the phone's audio processing. This intermediary analyzes the audio spectrum, identifies speech versus noise portions, and applies selective enhancement and suppression before the signal reaches the phone, thereby improving speech clarity in noisy environments.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the driver increases the volume of the radio or speakers to drown out noise, then the ambient noise is masked, but the overall audio quality and speech intelligibility deteriorate due to distortion and loss of detail
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts the speech signal from the mixed audio signal by analyzing the frequency spectrum and separating speech-frequency components from noise components. This extraction allows the speech to be enhanced and delivered clearly without needing to increase overall volume, thereby maintaining audio quality while overcoming ambient noise.
3Ease of operation
If a voice assistant is used in a noisy environment, then the convenience of hands-free operation is maintained, but the voice assistant repeatedly fails to understand commands due to poor speech recognition
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary processing of the voice signal before it reaches the voice assistant. By pre-enhancing speech components and suppressing noise in the frequency spectrum, the system ensures that the voice assistant receives a cleaned, enhanced signal that improves command recognition accuracy while maintaining hands-free operation convenience.
4Area of stationary object
If multiple microphones are used to capture speech from different directions, then the coverage area increases, but the device complexity and signal processing requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of uniformly processing signals from multiple microphones, the system applies local quality processing by analyzing the frequency spectrum and applying different enhancement and suppression techniques to different frequency bands. This allows effective speech capture from various directions while maintaining manageable processing complexity through selective spectral manipulation.
Data Source
AI summary
A phone stand includes a phone holder for coupling to a phone for conducting an audio session, the audio session including at least one voice session conducted by an application executing on the phone and a plurality of microphones including a particular microphone closer to a location where a user is expected to be positioned than other microphones. The phone stand further includes a system controller configured to: receive sound signals from the particular microphone, the sound signals comprising the user's speech; separate the sounds signals into speech signals and non-speech signals; obtain one or more input mixing attributes for the speech signals and the non-speech signals; modify the speech signals and the non-speech signals based on the one or more input mixing attributes; generate mixed signals by combining the modified speech signals and the modified non-speech signals; and send the mixed signals to the phone.