An audio device has an array of microphones and a voice processing system that obtains a multi-dimensional spatial feature vector comprising at least a correlation of the microphones and a calculation of at least one ratio of energies of the microphones, uses the multi-dimensional feature vector to estimate an energy of near-field speech and background noise, uses a ratio of the near-field speech energy and background noise estimates to estimate a probability of a presence of the near-field speech, adaptively combines signals from the microphones based on the estimated near-field speech presence probability to provide a combined output signal comprising a near-field speech signal and a residual background noise signal, estimates a power spectral density of the residual background noise signal present at the combined output signal using the estimated near-field speech presence probability, and reduces the background noise by using the estimated power spectral density.

Systems and methods for suppressing noise and detecting voice input in a multi-channel audio signal captured by a plurality of microphones include (i) capturing a first audio signal via a first microphone and a second audio signal via a second microphone, wherein the first and second audio signals respectively comprises first and second noise content from a noise source; (ii) identifying the first noise content in the first audio signal; (iii) using the identified first noise content to determine an estimated noise content captured by the plurality of microphones; (iv) using the estimated noise content to suppress the first and second noise content in the first and second audio signals; (v) combining the suppressed first and second audio signals into a third audio signal; and (vi) determining that the third audio signal includes a voice input comprising a wake word.

A method at an electronic device with one or more microphones and a speaker, the electronic device configured to be responsive to any of a plurality of affordances including a voice-based affordance, includes determining background noise of an environment associated with the electronic device, and before detecting the voice-based affordance: determining whether the background noise would interfere with recognition of the hotword in voice inputs detected by the electronic device, and if so, indicating to a user to use an affordance other than the voice-based affordance.

The invention provides an echo cancellation system and method of a multichannel sound mixing. The echo cancellation system comprises a voice assistant module and at least one signal generating device for respectively outputting first audio data and second audio data adapted to the configuration of a loudspeaker; a copying module for copying the first audio data and the second audio data to obtain corresponding third audio data and fourth audio data; a first sound mixing module for mixing and converting the first audio data and the second audio data to obtain two-channel first sound mixing data; a second sound mixing module for mixing the third audio data and the fourth audio data to obtain second sound mixing data; an echo cancellation module for echo cancellation according to the first sound mixing data; and a playing module for receiving and playing the second sound mixing data.

A method at an electronic device with one or more microphones and a speaker, the electronic device configured to be responsive to any of a plurality of affordances including a voice-based affordance, includes determining background noise of an environment associated with the electronic device, and before detecting the voice-based affordance: determining whether the background noise would interfere with recognition of the hotword in voice inputs detected by the electronic device, and if so, indicating to a user to use an affordance other than the voice-based affordance.

Audio pickup systems and methods are provided to enhance an audio signal by removing noise components related to an acoustic environment. The systems and methods receive a primary signal and one or more reference signals from various microphones. Adaptive filtering and combining minimizes an energy content of a resulting output signal, e.g., to form a substantially null output when the system is in a static acoustic environment. When the system is a playback sound source, one or more echo cancellers may contribute to removing content from the output signal. A change in the acoustic environment, such as a new sound source, causes content in the output signal until the adaptive filtering adapts to the new environment. In some examples, a desired content such as a wake-up word is detected and adaptation is stopped.

A system that determines that devices are co-located in an acoustic region and selects a single device to which to send incoming notifications for the acoustic region. The system may group devices into separate acoustic regions based on selection data that selects between similar audio data received from multiple devices. The system may select the best device for each acoustic region based on a frequency that the device was selected previously, input/output capabilities of the device, a proximity to a user, or the like. The system may send a notification to a single device in each of the acoustic regions so that a user receives a single notification instead of multiple unsynchronized notifications. The system may also determine that acoustic regions are associated with different locations and select acoustic regions to which to send a notification based on location.

Methods, systems and articles of manufacture for a wearable electronic device having an audio source identifier are disclosed. Example audio source identifiers disclosed herein include first and second audio sensors disposed at first and second locations, respectively, on a wearable electronic device. Such audio source identifiers also include a phase shift determiner to determine a phase shift between a first sample of first audio captured at the first audio sensor and a second sample of the first audio captured at the second audio sensor. The first audio includes first speech generated by a first speaker wearing the wearable electronic device. Example audio source identifiers further include a speaker identifier to determine, based on the phase shift determined by the phase shift determiner, whether second audio includes speech generated by a second speaker wearing the wearable electronic device.

A signal processing apparatus, for processing sounds collected in an environment where a target sound and an interfering sound are mixed in order to estimate a diffuse interfering sound accurately, is provided. The signal processing apparatus includes phase difference calculating means and generating means. The phase difference calculating means calculates a phase difference between the first input signal and the second input signal. The first input signal is generated based on the first input sound which is input in the environment where the target sound and the interfering sound are mixed. The second input signal is generated based on the second input sound which is input in the environment. The generating means generates an estimated interfering sound signal, based on the phase difference and the first input signal.

Systems and methods for suppressing noise and detecting voice input in a multi-channel audio signal captured by a plurality of microphones include (i) capturing a first audio signal via a first microphone and a second audio signal via a second microphone, wherein the first and second audio signals respectively comprises first and second noise content from a noise source; (ii) identifying the first noise content in the first audio signal; (iii) using the identified first noise content to determine an estimated noise content captured by the plurality of microphones; (iv) using the estimated noise content to suppress the first and second noise content in the first and second audio signals; (v) combining the suppressed first and second audio signals into a third audio signal; and (vi) determining that the third audio signal includes a voice input comprising a wake word.