A microphone array system or microphone array unit for a conference system is provided that includes a front board, side walls and a plurality of microphone capsules arranged in or on the front board mountable on or in a ceiling of a conference room. The microphone array system or unit is adapted for generating a steerable beam within a maximum detection angle range. The microphone array system or microphone array unit includes a processing unit which is configured to receive the output signals of the microphone capsules and to steer the beam based on the received output signal of the microphone array. The processing unit is configured to control the microphone array to limit the detection angle range to exclude at least one predetermined exclusion sector in which a noise source is located.

A spatial audio processing system operable to enable audio signals to be spatially extracted from, or transmitted to, discrete locations within an acoustic space. Embodiments of the present disclosure enable an array of transducers being installed in an acoustic space to combine their signals via inverting physical and environmental models that are measured, learned, tracked, calculated, or estimated. The models may be combined with a whitening filter to establish a cooperative or non-cooperative information-bearing channel between the array and one or more discrete, targeted physical locations in the acoustic space by applying the inverted models with whitening filter to the received or transmitted acoustical signals. The spatial audio processing system may utilize a model of the combination of direct and indirect reflections in the acoustic space to receive or transmit acoustic information, regardless of ambient noise levels, reverberation, and positioning of physical interferers.

A portable birdfinding device comprising a plurality of PDM microphone sensors (e.g. a microphone array) coupled to processing electronics that electronically filter the acoustic signals to detect sounds from birds, and to interpret the acoustic signals to identify the angle-of-arrival (e.g. azimuth and elevation) and distance from which the bird sound is coming. Additional electronic processing may provide an identification of the bird species. In some embodiments, the microphone array may have sensors spaced so that sounds from distant birds have a different time of flight to reach the different microphone sensors, while having the spacing between microphones be less than half of the wavelength for sounds made by a predetermined bird species. The microphone array may be positioned onto an object wearable by the birdwatcher, such as a hat or a jacket. In some embodiments, the electronic processing may be carried out using a smartphone.

There is provided a device for monitoring the use of a blister package, strip package, vial or bottle contents at a distance. A processor is connected to a compact random or quasi-random n-microphone array and is programmed to detect the sound of the content being expelled from a blister cavity, strip package, or a cap being removed from a vial or bottle. A content use data memory associated with the processor stores information relating to the expulsion or removal events. The processor is equipped with statistical means for differentiating the sound of the content being expelled, from the background noise, generating an electrical signal that is analyzed for relevance to content use events by the processor, and storing the resulting use data in memory. The processor may have an adaptive beam focussing algorithm to determine the direction of the source of the sound.

A vibrotactile support with suppressed distortion and destructive interference having a rigid frame within which is tensioned a high-density material panel in a supportive configuration. A low-durometer, high specific gravity material user interface pad is placed on the high-density panel on the user-supporting side and a plurality of acoustic drivers are attached to the opposing side of the high-density material panel to transmit vibrations through the high-density material panel, the pad, and the user's skin. The acoustic drivers are supplied from an amplifier which is supplied from an electronic audio source. The amplifier may also drive a set of headphones for the user. The audio source may be from any known electronic audio source, including audio-visual presentations. Various shapes and configurations of the vibrotactile support are possible. For non-limiting examples, the vibrotactile support may be configured as a lounge chair, upright chair, baby cradle, or flat bed.

A signal processing system and method for delivering spatialized sound, comprising: a spatial mapping sensor, configured to map an environment, to determine at least a position of at least one listener and at least one object; a signal processor configured to: transform a received audio program according to a spatialization model comprising parameters defining a head-related transfer function, and an acoustic interaction of the object, to form spatialized audio; generate an array of audio transducer signals for an audio transducer array representing the spatialized audio; and a network port configured to communicate physical state information for the at least one listener through digital packet communication network.

An example method of operation may include initializing a microphone array in a defined space to receive one or more sound instances based on a preliminary beamform tracking configuration, detecting the one or more sound instances within the defined space via the microphone array, modifying the preliminary beamform tracking configuration, based on a location of the one or more sound instances, to create a modified beamform tracking configuration, and saving the modified beamform tracking configuration in a memory of a microphone array controller.

An agent device includes a microphone configured to collect a speech sound inside a vehicle cabin, a speaker configured to output a speech sound inside the vehicle cabin, and a plurality of agent function elements having different functions. Each of the plurality of agent function elements generates a speech sound of an agent that speaks to an occupant of a vehicle on the basis of a meaning of the speech sound collected by the microphone, causes the speaker to output the generated speech sound of the agent. The agent function element serving as a main agent that has a dialogue with the occupant is switched on the basis of content of the speech sound collected by the microphone.

Systems and methods are described for generating a transcript of a legal proceeding or other multi-speaker conversation or performance in real time or near-real time using multi-channel audio capture. Different speakers or participants in a conversation may each be assigned a separate microphone that is placed in proximity to the given speaker, where each audio channel includes audio captured by a different microphone. Filters may be applied to isolate each channel to include speech utterances of a different speaker, and these filtered channels of audio data may then be processed in parallel to generate speech-to-text results that are interleaved to form a generated transcript.