Patent ID: 8320572

Claim:
An electronic apparatus, comprising: a microphone system, comprising a plurality of component modules, wherein the component modules comprise a plurality of microphones of an array microphone and a beamforming module; and a controller, performing a diagnostic test to determine a diagnostic result indicating whether the microphone modules and the beamforming modules of the component modules have failed the diagnostic test, determining whether a plurality of required component modules corresponding to a current application mode for operating the microphone system have failed the diagnostic test according to the diagnostic result, and when some of the required component modules has failed the diagnostic test, changing the current application mode to an altered application mode corresponding with the diagnostic result and directing the microphone system to operate according to the altered application mode, wherein the application mode requires cooperation of the required component modules selected from the component modules of the microphone system, and a plurality of second required component modules corresponding to the altered application mode are in good condition; wherein the controller comprises a mono-mode circuit which operates when a current application mode is a mono mode, and the mono-mode circuit directs operation of the microphone system as follows: when more than one of the microphones are in good condition, the controller randomly selects a target microphone from the microphones in good condition and uses the target microphone to generate an audio signal; when only one of the microphones is in good condition, the controller uses only the microphone in good condition to generate an audio signal; and when all of the microphones have failed the diagnostic test, the controller reports errors of the microphone system.