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.

Disclosed are a directional acoustic sensor, a method of adjusting directional characteristics using the directional acoustic sensor, and a method of attenuating an acoustic signal in a specific direction using the directional acoustic sensor. The directional acoustic sensor includes a plurality of resonance units arranged to have different directionalities and a signal processor configured to adjust directional characteristics by calculating at least one of a sum of and a difference between outputs of the resonance units. In this state, the signal processor attenuates an acoustic signal in a specific direction by using a plurality of directional characteristics obtained by calculating at least one of the sum of and the difference between the outputs of the resonance units at a certain ratio.

A sound collecting device includes a sound source position input interface that receives input of sound source position information indicating a sound source position, an audio interface that receives input of sound signals collected by two or more sound collecting units placed at predetermined positions in advance, a recording medium in which sound collecting unit placement information indicating placement information of the sound collecting units is stored, and a controller that selects one of the sound signals output from the sound collecting units, based on the sound source position information and the sound collecting unit placement information.

Speech from multiple users is distinguished. In one example, an apparatus has a sensor to determine a position of a speaker, a microphone array to receive audio from the speaker and from other simultaneous audio sources, and a processor to select a pre-determined filter based on the determined position and to apply the selected filter to the received audio to separate the audio from the speaker from the audio from the other simultaneous audio sources.

A binaural hearing system comprises a first and second hearing aids. The hearing aids each comprises antenna and transceiver circuitry allowing the exchange of audio signals between them. At least one of the hearing aids comprises primary and secondary adaptive 2-channel beamformers each providing a spatially filtered signal based on first and second beamformer-input signals. The primary and secondary 2-channel beamformers are coupled in a cascaded structure. In an embodiment, the spatially filtered signal of the secondary 2-channel beamformer may comprise an estimate of user's own voice. In an embodiment, the spatially filtered signal of the secondary 2-channel beamformer may comprise an estimate of a target signal in the environment. In an embodiment, the inputs to the secondary 2-channel beamformer may be beamformed signals from the first and second hearing aids respectively.

A system and method for generating a self-steering beamformer is provided. Embodiments may include receiving, at one or more microphones, a first audio signal and adapting one or more blocking filters based upon, at least in part, the first audio signal. Embodiments may also include generating, using the one or more blocking filters, one or more noise reference signals. Embodiments may further include providing the one or more noise reference signals to an adaptive interference canceller to reduce a beamformer output power level.

An ear-mountable listening device includes an adaptive phased array of microphones, a speaker, and electronics. The microphones are physically arranged into a ring pattern to capture sounds emanating from an environment. Each of the microphones is configured to output one of a plurality of first audio signals that is representative of the sounds captured by a respective one of the microphones. The speaker is arranged to emit audio into an ear. The electronics are coupled to the adaptive phased array and the speaker and include logic that when executed causes the ear-mountable listening device receive a user input identifying a first sound for cancelling or amplifying, steer a null or a lobe of the adaptive phased array based upon the user input, and generate a second audio signal that drives the speaker based upon a combination of one or more of the first audio signals.

Hybrid audio beamforming systems and methods with narrower beams and improved directivity are provided. The hybrid audio beamforming system includes a time domain beamformer for processing upper frequency band signals of an audio signal using a time domain beamforming technique, and a frequency domain beamformer for processing groups of lower frequency band signals of the audio signal using frequency domain beamforming techniques.

In one example, a video endpoint obtains, from a vertical microphone array, a first audio signal including audio from a target sound source and audio from a horizontally-displaced sound source. The video endpoint obtains, from a horizontal microphone array, a second audio signal and a third audio signal both including the audio from the target sound source and the audio from the horizontally-displaced sound source. Based on the second audio signal and the third audio signal, the video endpoint determines at least one of a first degree of arrival of the audio from the target sound source or a second degree of arrival of the audio from the horizontally-displaced sound source. Based on the at least one of the first degree of arrival or the second degree of arrival, the video endpoint adjusts a gain of the first audio signal.

A microphone array (3) having microphones (2) observing sound and a noise elimination processing unit (5) obtaining a sound of interest by eliminating noise from the observed sound signal are provided. The two microphones (2) which are adjacent to each other from among the plurality of microphones (2) have a positional relationship in such a manner that, in a plane (12) including the two microphones (2), a sound-of-interest source (A) generating a sound of interest, and a noise source (B) generating noise, the perpendicular bisector (13) of a first line segment (10) connecting the two microphones (2) coincides with the bisector of the angle θ between a second line segment (14) connecting the sound-of-interest source (A) and the midpoint (11) of the first line segment (10) and a third line segment (15) connecting the noise source (B) and the midpoint (11) of the first line segment (10).