Patent ID: 7174022

Claim:
A noise suppression system comprising: an array microphone comprised of a plurality of microphones and operative to provide a plurality of received signals, one received signal for each microphone, wherein the plurality of microphones include at least one omni-directional microphone and at least one uni-directional microphone; at least one voice activity detector operative to provide first and second voice detection signals based on the plurality of received signals; a reference generator operative to provide a reference signal based on the first voice detection signal and a first set of received signals selected from among the plurality of received signals; a beam-former operative to provide a beam-formed signal based on the second voice detection signal, the reference signal, and a second set of received signals selected from among the plurality of received signals, wherein the beam-formed signal has noise and interference suppressed; and a multi-channel noise suppressor operative to further suppress noise and interference in the beam-formed signal and provide an output signal.