Patent ID: 8467543
Filing Date: 2013-06-18
Classification: G10L,H04R

Abstract:
1. A communications system, comprising: a voice detection subsystem configured to receive voice activity signals that includes information associated with human voicing activity, the voice detection subsystem configured to automatically generate control signals using the voice activity signals; and a denoising subsystem coupled to the voice detection subsystem, the denoising subsystem comprising a microphone array including a plurality of microphones, wherein a first microphone of the array is fixed at a first position relative to a mouth, wherein the first position orients a front of the first microphone towards the mouth, wherein a second microphone of the array is fixed at a second position relative to the mouth, wherein the second position orients a front of the second microphone away from the mouth such that the second position forms an angle relative to the first position, wherein the angle is greater than zero degrees, the microphone array providing acoustic signals of an environment to components of the denoising subsystem, components of the denoising subsystem automatically selecting at least one denoising method appropriate to data of at least one frequency subband of the acoustic signals using the control signals and processing the acoustic signals using the selected denoising method to generate denoised acoustic signals, wherein the denoising method includes generating a noise waveform estimate associated with noise of the acoustic signals and subtracting the noise waveform estimate from the acoustic signal when the acoustic signal includes speech and noise, wherein the voice detection subsystem is configured to receive the voice activity signals using a sensor independent from the microphone array and to output the control signals generated from the voice activity signals to the denoising system, the denoising system configured to use the control signals to denoise the acoustic signals from the microphone array.