Patent ID: 7516068

Claim:
An audio collection system for speech recognition comprising: at least one consuming device operating via speech recognition; and a plurality of listening devices connected within a network, at least one of the plurality of listening devices including: a plurality of microphone capsules, the plurality of microphone capsules arranged in opposing directions, and utilized to determine the relative direction of a speaker to the listening device; a signal pre-amplifier including: an adjustable input gain, and circuitry to optimize an amplification of a signal to provide an optimal signal-to-noise ratio; a processor including: an amount of processing power adequate to calculate signal quality and loudness of a detected signal; circuitry configured to permit group voting among the plurality of listening devices to determine which of the plurality of listening devices that received an audio signal at the same time is selected to perform a transmitting task, circuitry to determine a target consuming device, and circuitry to direct the at least one consuming device to prompt a speaker for clarification; and a transmitter-receiver configured to receive information from at least one of the plurality of listening devices and transmit the audio signal from the selected device to the at least one consuming device operating via speech recognition, at least one of the plurality of listening devices configured to receive location information of at least one other of the plurality of listening devices relative to a geographical environment within which the at least one and the at least one other of the plurality of listening devices is positioned wherein said at least one consuming device further comprises operating the recognized result as a spoken command from received audio signal.