Multimicrophone Audio System Signal Combination Scoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing audio systems with distributed microphones struggle to effectively assess and improve the quality of speech pickup, particularly in noisy environments, as current methods do not adequately consider combinations of microphone signals for noise reduction and echo control.
Innovation Solution
An audio system comprising a processor that determines different sets of microphone input signals, calculates audio parameters such as signal-to-noise ratio and echo-to-signal ratio, and assigns scores to these sets to identify the best combinations for further processing, allowing for improved noise reduction and echo control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If microphone input signals are assessed in isolation, then the assessment process is simple, but the score does not reflect the actual result achievable with signal combinations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies nesting by evaluating individual microphone signals within the context of multiple combinations. Each microphone signal is assessed not only in isolation but also nested within various sets of combinations, allowing the system to determine scores that reflect actual performance in different configurations without requiring complete re-evaluation of each combination from scratch
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary assessment of individual microphone input signals before evaluating their combinations. By first determining quality metrics for each microphone signal independently, the system prepares foundational data that accelerates subsequent combination evaluations, reducing the overall computational complexity while maintaining accurate scoring
2Reliability
If more microphone signal combinations are evaluated, then the speech quality enhancement is improved, but the processing time and computational load increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements partial action by evaluating a selected number of microphone signal combinations rather than exhaustively assessing all possible combinations. The system determines scores for multiple sets of combinations, selecting those that provide sufficient speech quality enhancement without requiring complete evaluation of every possible microphone configuration, thus balancing quality improvement with processing efficiency
3Ease of operation
If individual microphone signals are selected based on isolated quality metrics, then the selection process is straightforward, but the noise reduction and echo control performance is suboptimal
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies merging by combining multiple microphone input signals into sets and evaluating their collective performance. Instead of selecting microphones based on individual quality metrics alone, the system determines scores for combinations of signals, leveraging the complementary strengths of multiple microphones to achieve superior noise reduction and echo control while maintaining operational simplicity through automated scoring
Data Source
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AI summary
An audio system comprising a plurality of distributed microphones and a processor. The processor is configured to obtain a plurality of microphone input signals, determine a plurality of different sets of microphone input signals, determine for each set of microphone input signals a first audio parameter, determine a score for each of the sets of microphone input signals, and output the determined scores.