Patent ID: 8462190

Claim:
A voice communication device for carrying out voice communication between a plurality of locations, comprising: a microphone array including a plurality of sound collecting elements for collecting a voice; a sound source direction identification block for identifying a direction of a sound source according to the voice collected by the plurality of sound collecting elements; a voice sender block for sending the collected voice to a different location; a voice receiver block for receiving a voice from the different location; a player block for playing the received voice; a playing information setting block for setting playing information for the voice being played; a speaker volume storage block for acquiring the direction of the sound source for which the playing information is set from the sound source direction identification block, and storing the direction of the sound source and the playing information in association with each other; and a voice manipulating block for acquiring the playing information corresponding to the direction of the sound source of the voice being played from the speaker volume storage block, and manipulating the voice based on the playing information, wherein the voice manipulating block determines whether the collected voice is a background noise or an uttered voice by using the playing information, amplifies the collected voice if it is determined that the collected voice is an uttered voice, and, when the direction of the sound source changes, acquires playing information corresponding to a new direction of the sound source from the speaker volume storage block, and manipulates the voice based on the playing information.