Patent ID: 9591123
Date: 2017-03-07
CPC Classifications: H04M

Claim:
1. A method of echo cancellation in an acoustic system, comprising a first user device and at least one further user device, the method comprising, at the first user device: detecting a first audio signal received from the at least one further user device over a communications network; supplying the first audio signal when received to an audio signal processing module of the first user device, wherein the audio signal processing module processes the first audio signal and outputs a processed audio signal to audio output means of the first user device; controlling an echo cancellation process for cancelling echo from a second audio signal received via audio input means of the first user device based on a loopback signal provided by the processed audio signal and selectively based on the first audio signal when detected, the second audio signal comprising background noise at the first user device; responsive to the first audio signal being detected, applying an over-suppression factor for suppressing an estimated echo in the second audio signal in the echo cancellation process by updating an echo path estimate using the loopback signal; and responsive to the first audio signal no longer being detected, setting the over-suppression factor to zero in the second audio signal at the first user device such that the background noise is transmitted to the at least one further user device without suppression.