Patent ID: 7116791

Claim:
A microphone array system including a plurality of microphones and a signal processing unit, comprising: at least one microphone arranged along each axis direction; and a received sound signal processing part for performing processing of sound signals received at the plurality of microphones, having a directional sound signal calculating function, which is essential for estimating a directional sound signal to an arbitrary direction based on the received sound signal with a unidirectivity or bidirectivity pattern along each axis direction, and further having at least one function of other sound signal processing functions at the same time, wherein the plurality of microphones consist of only three unidirectional microphones, a first unidirectional microphone being directed to a positive direction on a first axis, and second and third unidirectional microphones being directed to positive and negative directions on a second axis that is orthogonal to the first axis, wherein the received sound signal processing part has a function for calculating a directional sound signal to an arbitrary direction based on a unidirectional received sound signal to a positive direction on the first axis and a bidirectional received sound signal to positive and negative directions on the second axis, and wherein the received sound signal processing part has a sound source direction detecting function for detecting a sound source direction, using a power in each axis direction of a sound signal calculated by the directional sound signal calculating function and a cross-correlation thereof; and further comprising the directional sound signal calculating function and the sound source direction detecting function at the same time, specifying a direction of a speaker by the sound source direction detecting function, calculating a directional sound signal to the direction of the speaker by the directional sound signal calculating function and performing desired sound enhancement processing to enhance the voice of the speaker in an arbitrary direction dynamically.