Patent ID: 8738368

Claim:
A speech processing system for a vehicle having a plurality of zones, comprising: a plurality of microphones corresponding to the plurality of zones in the vehicle; and a controller in communication with the microphones, wherein the controller receives vehicle occupant speech signals from at least one of the plurality of microphones, determines at least one active communication zone in which at least one vehicle occupant is speaking, and modifies speech processing in response to the active communication zone determination; wherein the speech processing system includes an automated speech recognition system that recognizes driver speech input commands received via at least one of the microphones for control of one or more vehicle functions, and includes wireless communication capability that supplies occupant speech received via at least some of the microphones to be wirelessly transmitted for speech communication over a telecommunications system; wherein the controller is operable to modify the speech processing using different hands-free parameters based on which one or more of the plurality of zones is determined to be the one or more active communication zones, and is operable to switch between the different hands-free parameters in response to determining a switch from a previously determined active communication zone to a presently determined active communication zone; and wherein one of the previously determined active communication zone and the presently determined active communication zone can be a first one of the plurality of zones and the other of the previously determined active communication zone and the presently determined active communication zone can be a combination of the plurality of zones that includes the first zone.