Patent ID: 7720679

Claim:
A speech recognition apparatus comprising: a microphone array comprising at least 3 microphones for measuring a profile of a base form sound from possible various sound source directions and a profile of a nondirectional background sound prior to recording a voice; wherein each microphone measures a delay and a sum of peak power for each of a plurality of angles from a horizontal axis and from a vertical axis in response to a sound source located at a plurality of locations about said microphone array; a database for storing said profile of said base form sound from said possible various sound source directions and said profile of said nondirectional background sound measured prior to said recording of said voice; a sound source localization part for comparing a profile of the voice recorded by the microphone array with the profile of the base form sound from said possible various sound source directions and said profile of said nondirectional background sounds measured prior to said recording of said voice and stored in the database to estimate a sound source direction of the recorded voice; and a speech recognition part for executing speech recognition of voice data of a component of the sound source direction estimated by the sound source localization part.