Patent ID: 8144886

Claim:
An audio conferencing apparatus comprising: a housing having a lower surface, a side surface and a leg portion for separating the lower surface from an installation surface at a predetermined distance; a speaker array including plural speakers arranged in the lower surface, in which a sound emission direction thereof is an outward direction from the lower surface; a sound emission controller for performing signal processing for sound emission on an input sound signal to control sound emission directivity of the speaker array; a microphone array including plural microphones arranged in the side surface, in which a sound collection direction there of is the outward direction from the side surface; a sound collection controller for performing signal processing for sound collection on a sound collection sound signal collected by the microphone array to generate plural sound collection beam signals having sound collection directivities different from one another, detecting a sound collection environment by comparing the plural sound collection beam signals and selecting and outputting a particular sound collection beam signal; and a regression sound elimination unit for performing control so that the sound emitted from the speaker array is not included in an output sound signal based on the input sound signal and the particular sound collection beam signal.