Patent ID: 6157908
Filing Date: 2000-12-05
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
An order point communication system, comprising:an order point being disposed in a location subject at times to undesirable audible background noise and having microphone means and speaker means for communicating message for completing transactions;a base station unit for relaying messages to and from the order point;a wireless communicator unit having microphone means and speaker means for communicating wirelessly messages via the base station unit to and from the order point; andmeans for enhancing relative to the audible background noise the messages being generated at the order point before receipt by said communicator unit to improve substantially the speech to noise ratio thereof that the perceived sound quality at said communicator unit of the messages sent from the order point is enhanced in noisy environments;the message enhancing means having an input and an output;means coupling said input of said message enhancing means and the order point microphone in communication with one another;said message enhancing means including means for separating noise content, indicative of the background noise at the order point, from the messages originated from said order point;means for reconstructing the noise-removed portions of the messages to form a single substantially pure speech signal to serve as a reconstructed message at the communicator unit; andmeans for coupling said output of said message enhancing means and said wireless communicator unit to supply the reconstructed message thereto;wherein said noise reduction means includes means for converting one of said messages into a group of individual signals of different frequencies, means for determining the rate of change of amplitude for each signal to identify the variation in amplitude, means for averaging the rate of amplitude change for all of the signals to assign a weighted value for each signal indicative of the speech to noise values therefor, and means for converting the weighted signals into a single substantially pure speech signal to serve as a reconstructed message.