Patent ID: 8705753

Claim:
Method for processing sound signals in a vehicle multimedia system, comprising: detecting a sound signal with a microphone, where the sound signal has a first voice signal component that corresponds to a voice signal, a second voice signal component that results from a loudspeaker, and an audio signal component resulting from an audio signal; estimating an impulse response between the loudspeaker and the microphone in an adaptive echo cancellation filter; computing a simulated audio signal component with the impulse response in the adaptive echo cancellation filter; computing a simulated second voice signal component based on the impulse response determined by the adaptive echo cancellation filter in a feedback filter, wherein the same impulse response is used for computing the simulated audio component and for computing the simulated second voice signal; removing the simulated audio signal component and simulated second voice signal component from the detected sound signal that results in a compensated signal; estimating a background noise level based on the compensated signal; and adjusting a sound output volume by the vehicle multimedia system based on the estimated background noise level.