Virtual Talk Group Stream Deduplication for Echo Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Interoperability between different communication networks and endpoints, such as land mobile radios and personal computers, often results in inefficient and laborious manual interventions, leading to issues like echo and feedback noise due to overlapping members in virtual talk groups.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for managing virtual talk groups by identifying overlapping members, creating internal virtual talk groups, and using user interfaces to prevent loops, which involves dropping redundant streams and using cross-correlation matrices or speech recognition to identify common sources.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple virtual talk groups share common members, then communication versatility is improved, but echo and feedback noise increase due to overlapping streams
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and removes duplicate streams from the mixing process. When multiple virtual talk groups share common members, the system identifies and eliminates redundant stream copies before mixing, keeping only the first occurrence of each stream while removing subsequent duplicates that would cause echo and feedback noise.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary component (stream manager) that sits between stream sources and the mixing process. This intermediary identifies common sources across multiple virtual talk groups and controls stream distribution, preventing duplicate streams from being mixed while still allowing versatile communication across groups.
2Adaptability or versatility
If manual intervention is used to manage interoperability between different networks, then communication compatibility is improved, but operational efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements self-service automation where the stream management system automatically identifies overlapping members across virtual talk groups, detects common stream sources, and removes duplicate streams without requiring manual configuration or intervention. This maintains compatibility across different networks while eliminating laborious manual operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses feedback mechanisms to monitor stream sources and identify common sources across multiple virtual talk groups. By continuously analyzing stream origins and providing feedback to the mixing process, the system automatically adjusts to prevent echo and feedback noise without manual intervention.
3Loss of information
If all streams from common sources are mixed in virtual talk groups, then stream completeness is improved, but audio quality deteriorates due to echo
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts duplicate stream copies from the complete set of streams before mixing. It identifies streams originating from common sources across multiple virtual talk groups and removes redundant copies, retaining only the first occurrence. This maintains stream completeness by preserving all unique information while eliminating echo-causing duplicates.
Data Source
AI summary
Providing virtual talk groups to an endpoint includes managing the virtual talk groups, where a virtual talk group comprises one or more members operable to participate in the virtual talk group. One or more overlapping members are identified, where an overlapping member is a member of more than one virtual talk group. Internal virtual talk groups are generated from the original virtual talk groups, where the internal virtual talk groups comprise at least a reduced number of overlapping members. One or more original virtual talk groups are provided to the endpoint using the internal virtual talk groups.