FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

[0001] The present invention generally relates to noise reduction methods and apparatus generating spatially focused audio signals from sound received by one or more communication devices. More particular, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for generating a multi-focus directional output signal from sound received by at least two microphones arranged as microphone array.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Hands-free telephony installations, especially in an environment like a running vehicle, unavoidably pick up environmental noise, because of the considerable distance between sound signal source (speaking person's mouth) and microphone(s). This leads to a degradation of communication comfort. Several methods are known to improve communication quality in such use cases. Normally, communication quality is improved by attempting to reduce the noise level without distorting the voice signal. There are methods that reduce the noise level of the microphone signal by means of assumptions about the nature of the noise, e.g. continuity in time. Such single-microphone methods as disclosed e.g. in German patent DE 199 48 308 C2 achieve a considerable level of noise reduction. Other methods as disclosed in US 2011/0257967 utilize estimations of the signal-to-noise ratio and threshold levels of speech loss distortion. However, the voice quality of all single microphone noise-reduction methods degrades if there is a high noise level, and a high noise suppression level is applied.

[0003] Other methods use one or more additional microphone(s) for further improvement of the communication quality. Different geometries can be distinguished, either with rather big distances (> 10 cm) or with smaller distances (< 3 cm) between the microphones arranged as a small-spaced array in the latter case. In this case the microphones pick up the voice signal in a rather similar manner and there is no principle distinction between the microphones. Such methods as disclosed, e.g., in German patent DE 10 2004 005 998 B3 require information about the expected sound source location, i.e. the position of the user's mouth relative to the microphones, since geometric assumptions are required as basis of such methods.

[0004] Further developments are capable of in-system calibration, wherein the algorithm applied is able to cope with different and a-priori unknown positions of the sound source. However, such calibration process requires noise-free situations to calibrate the system as disclosed, e.g., in German patent application DE 10 2010 001 935 A1 or US patent 9,330,677.

[0005] If the microphones are mounted with bigger spacing, they are usually positioned in a way that the level of voice pick-up is as distinct as possible, i.e. one microphone faces the user's mouth, the other one is placed as far away as possible from the user's mouth, e.g. at the top edge or back side of a telephone handset. The goal of such geometry is a great difference of voice signal level between the microphones. The simplest method of this kind just subtracts the signal of the "noise microphone" (away from user's mouth) from the "voice microphone" (near user's mouth), taking into account the distance of the microphones. However since the noise is not exactly the same in both microphones and its impact direction is usually unknown, the effect of such a simple approach is poor.

[0006] More advanced methods use a counterbalanced correction signal generator to attenuate environmental noise cf., e.g., US 2007/0263847. However, a method like this cannot be easily expanded to use cases with small-spaced microphone arrays with more than two microphones.

[0007] Other methods try to estimate the time difference between signal components in both microphone signals by detecting certain features in the microphone signals in order to achieve better noise reduction results, cf., e.g., WO 2003/043374 Al. However, feature detection can get very difficult under certain conditions, e.g. if there is a high reverberation level. Removing such reverberation is another aspect of 2-microphone methods as disclosed, e.g., in W02006/041735 A2, in which spectra-temporal signal processing is applied.

[0008] In US 2003/0179888 a method is described that utilizes a Voice Activity Detector for distinguishing Voice and Noise in combination with a microphone array. However, such an approach fails if an unwanted disturbance seen as noise has the same characteristic as voice, or even is an undesired voice signal.

[0009] US 13/618,234 discloses an advanced Beam Forming method using small spaced microphones, with the disadvantage that it is limited to broad-view Beam Forming with not more than two microphones.

[0010] Wind buffeting caused by turbulent airflow at the microphones is a common problem of microphone array techniques. Methods known in the art that reduce wind buffeting, e.g. US 7,885,420 B2, operate on single microphones, not solving the array- specific problems of wind buffeting.

[0011] All methods grouping more than one microphone to a small-spaced microphone array and carrying out mathematical operations on the plurality of microphone signals rely on almost identical microphones. Tolerances amongst the microphones of an array lead to differences in sensitivity, frequency response, etc. and tend to degrade the precision of the calculations, or are even capable of producing wrong processing results.

[0012] Beam Forming microphone arrays usually have a single Beam Focus, pointing to a certain direction, or they are adaptive in the sense that the focus can vary during operation, as disclosed, e.g., in CN 1851806 A.

[0013] Certain applications require two or more individual and fixed foci, e.g. driver and passenger of a vehicle both using a hands-free telephone system with microphones built-in to the vehicle. In such an installation, there are usually two directional microphones or microphone arrays, each pointing to the driver or the passenger direction, respectively. The signals of both directions are then mixed, if driver and passenger shall both be able to use said hands-free telephone equipment. Mixing, however, deteriorates the signal-to- noise ratio of the resulting signal, because the noise of both directions is added.

SUMMARY

[0014] It is therefore an object of the present disclosure to provide methods and systems with improved noise reduction techniques generating spatially focused audio signals from sound received by more than one sound capturing devices. [0015] One general aspect of the improved techniques includes methods and apparatus of Beam Forming using at least one microphone array comprising at least two spaced apart microphones with more than one focus direction having an improved signal-to-noise ratio.

[0016] Another general aspect of the improved techniques includes methods and apparatus with the ability to automatically compensate microphone tolerances and to reduce disturbances caused by wind buffeting.

[0017] According to a first aspect, there is provided a method for generating a directional output signal from sound received by at least two microphones arranged as microphone array, said directional output signal having at least two Beam Focus Directions. The method comprises the steps of transforming the sound received by each of said microphones and represented by analog-to-digital converted time-domain signals provided by each of said microphones into corresponding complex valued frequency-domain microphone signals each having a frequency component value for each of a plurality of frequency components. The method further comprises calculating from the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signals, for each of a plurality of selected Beam Focus Directions, a Beam Focus Spectrum. Said Beam Focus Spectrum comprises, for each of the plurality of frequency components, a time-dependent, real-valued attenuation factor, selecting, for each of the plurality of frequency components, the maximum amongst said attenuation factors of the plurality of Beam Focus Spectra as selected attenuation factor, multiplying, for each of the plurality of frequency components, the selected attenuation factor with the frequency component value of the complex-valued frequency- domain microphone signal of one of said microphones to obtain a multi-focus directional frequency component value, and forming a frequency-domain multi-focus directional output signal from the multi-focus directional frequency component values for each of the plurality of frequency components. According to this aspect, there is provided a robust multi-focus Beam Forming method with improved signal-to-noise ratio allowing smaller microphone distances between the microphones forming the microphone array.

[0018] According to another aspect, the method further comprises to synthesize a time- domain multi-focus directional output signal from the frequency-domain multi-focus directional output signal by means of inverse transformation. According to this aspect, there is provided a time domain output signal for further processing.

[0019] According to another aspect, calculating the Beam Focus Spectra further comprises calculating, for each of the plurality of frequency components, real-valued Beam Spectra values from the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signals for each of the selected Beam Focus Directions by means of predefined, microphone-specific, time- constant, complex-valued Transfer Functions, wherein, for each of the plurality of frequency components, said Beam Spectra values are used as arguments of a Characteristic Function with values between zero and one, providing Beam Focus Spectrum values for each of the selected Beam Focus Directions and forming the Beam Focus Spectra from the Beam Focus Spectrum values for each of the selected Beam Focus Direction. According to this aspect, there is provided an even more robust and improved multi-focus Beam Forming method with improved signal-to-noise ratio since restricting the Beam Focus Spectra values to be values between zero and one by means of the Characteristic Function in order to avoid the degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio known in prior art Beam Forming methods.

[0020] According to another aspect, each of the Beam Focus Spectrum values comprises a respective attenuation factor. According to this aspect, there is provided simple and robust technique allowing to damp each frequency component by a respective attenuation factor.

[0021] According to another aspect, the method further comprises that, for each of the plurality of frequency components, the maximum amongst said Beam Focus Spectrum values of the respective Beam Focus Direction is selected, wherein the maximum Beam Focus Spectrum values form a multi-focus attenuation spectrum, and wherein, for each of the plurality of frequency components, the selected Beam Focus Spectrum value is multiplied with the frequency component value of the complex-valued frequency-domain microphone signal of one of said microphones to obtain the multi-focus directional frequency component value. According to this aspect, there is provided a frequency component specific multi-focus directional microphone signal processing. [0022] According to another aspect, the method further comprises calculating, for each of the plurality of frequency, components of the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signal of at least one of said microphones, a respective tolerance compensated frequency component value by multiplying the frequency component value of the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signal of said microphone with a real-valued correction factor, wherein, for each of the plurality of frequency components, said real-valued correction factor is calculated as temporal average of frequency component values of a plurality of real-valued Deviation Spectra, wherein, for each of the plurality of frequency components, each frequency component value of a Deviation Spectrum of said plurality of real valued Deviation Spectra is calculated by dividing the frequency component magnitude of a frequency-domain reference signal by the frequency component magnitude of the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signal of said microphone, and wherein each of the Beam Focus Spectra for the selected Beam Focus Direction is calculated from the respective tolerance compensated frequency component values for said microphone. According to this aspect, there is provided an improved method efficiently compensating microphone tolerances.

[0023] According to another aspect, for generating a wind-reduced directional output signal, the method further comprises calculating, for each of the plurality of frequency components, real-valued Wind Reduction Factors as minima of the reciprocal frequency components of said Deviation Spectra, and wherein, for each of the plurality of frequency components, said Wind Reduction Factors are multiplied with the frequency component values of said frequency-domain directional output signal, forming a frequency-domain wind-reduced directional output signal. According to this aspect, there is provided an improved method efficiently compensating disturbances caused by wind buffeting.

[0024] According to another aspect, the method further comprises that a time-domain wind-reduced direction output signal is synthesized from the frequency-domain wind- reduced directional output signal by means of inverse transformation. According to this aspect, there is provided an improved, wind noise reduced time domain output signal for further processing. [0025] According to another aspect, the method further comprises that the temporal averaging of the frequency components is only executed if said frequency component value of said Deviation Spectrum is above a predefined threshold value. According to this aspect, there is provided an even more efficient technique allowing to temporally average the frequency component values only if considered to be useful depending on the value of the Deviation Spectrum component.

[0026] According to another aspect, the method further comprises that when the Beam Focus Spectrum for the respective Beam Focus Direction is provided, for each of the plurality of frequency components, Characteristic Function values of different Beam Spectra are multiplied. According to this aspect, there is provided an even more improved method taking into account Characteristic Function values of different Beam Spectra.

[0027] According to another aspect, an apparatus is disclosed for generating a directional output signal from sound received by at least two microphones arranged as microphone array, said directional output signal having at least two Beam Focus Directions. The apparatus comprising at least one processor adapted to perform the methods as discloses therein. According to this aspect, there is provided a multi-focus Beam Forming apparatus with improved signal-to-noise ratio allowing smaller microphone distances between the microphones forming the microphone array.

[0028] According to another aspect, the apparatus further comprises at least two microphones.

[0029] According to further aspects, there is disclosed a computer program comprising instructions to execute the methods as disclosed therein as well as a computer-readable medium having stored thereon said computer program.

[0030] Still other objects, aspects and embodiments of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description wherein embodiments of the invention will be described in greater detail.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0031] The invention will be readily understood from the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. As it will be realized, the invention is capable of other embodiments, and its several details are capable of modifications in various, obvious aspects all without departing from the invention.

[0032] Fig. 1 is a flow diagram illustrating an example method according to an embodiment.

[0033] Fig. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating an example method according to an embodiment and at the same time also illustrating a block diagram of an example apparatus which may be used for one of more embodiments described herein.

[0034] Fig. 3 is a block diagram of an example Microphone Tolerance Compensator which may be used for one of more embodiments described herein.

[0035] Fig. 4 is a block diagram of an example Beam Focus Calculator which may be used for one of more embodiments described herein.

[0036] Fig. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating an example method for calculating an example transfer function according to an embodiment

[0037] Fig. 6 is a block diagram of an example Wind Protector which may be used for one of more embodiments described herein.

[0038] Fig. 7 is a block diagram of an exemplary Multi-Focus Beam Combiner which may be used for one of more embodiments described herein.

[0039] Various examples and embodiments of the methods and systems of the present disclosure will now be described. The following description provides specific details for a thorough understanding and enabling description of these examples. One skilled in the relevant art will understand, however, that one or more embodiments described herein may be practiced without many of these details. Likewise, one skilled in the relevant art will also understand that one or more embodiments of the present disclosure can include other features not described in detail herein. Additionally, some well-known structures or functions may not be shown or described in detail below, so as to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the relevant description. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Introduction

[0040] Embodiments as described herein relate to ambient noise-reduction techniques for communications apparatus such as telephone hands-free installations, especially in vehicles, handsets, especially mobile or cellular phones, tablet computers, walkie-talkies, or the like. In the context of the present disclosure, "noise" and "ambient noise" shall have the meaning of any disturbance added to a desired sound signal like a voice signal of a certain user. Such disturbance can be noise in the literal sense, and also interfering voice of other speakers, or sound coming from loudspeakers, or any other sources of sound, not considered as the desired sound signal. "Noise Reduction" in the context of the present disclosure shall also have the meaning of focusing sound reception to a certain area or direction, e.g. the direction to a user's mouth, or more generally, to the sound signal source of interest. Such focusing is called Beam Forming in the context of the present disclosure, where the terminus shall exceed standard linear methods often referred to as Beam Forming, too. Beam, Beam Focus, and Beam Focus Direction specify the spatial directivity of audio processing in the context of the present invention.

[0041] First of all, however, some terms will be defined and reference symbols are introduced; Symbols in bold represent complexed valued variables:

A(f) Attenuation spectrum for Multi-Focus Beam-Formed Signal

Bij(f) Beam Spectrum calculated from two microphones 0 and i=l..n, and Beam j=l..m

C(x) Beam Focus Characteristic Function, 0 < C(x>0) < 1

c Speed of sound

d Spatial distance between microphones

Di(f) Deviation Spectrum of microphone with index i=l..n relative to microphone 0 Ei(f) Correction factors for microphone with index i=l..n for tolerance compensation f Frequency of a component of a short-time frequency-domain signal

g Beam Forming Exponent g>0, linear Beam Forming when g=l

Fj(f) Multi Microphone Focus Spectrum of Beam Focus with index j, j=l..m

Hij(f) Transfer Function for microphone with index i and Beam Focus with index j rn Number of Beam Foci forming a Multi-Focus Beam

n Total number of microphones of the array, minus one

o Number of microphones forming a single-focus beam, minus one

Mi(f) Signal spectrum of microphone with index i, i=0..n

W(f) Wind Reduction Spectrum

si(t) Time-domain signal of microphone with index i

S(f) Multi-Focus Beam-Formed frequency-domain signal

[0042] All spectra are notated only as frequency-dependent, e.g. S(f), although they also change over time with each newly calculated short-time Fourier Transform. This implicit time dependency is omitted in the nomenclature for the sake of simplicity.

Detailed Description of Embodiments

[0043] According to embodiments, there are provided methods and apparatus for generating a directional output signal from sound received by at least two microphones arranged as microphone array. The directional output signal has one or more Beam Focus Directions. The method includes transforming sound received by each microphone into a corresponding complex valued frequency-domain microphone. For any Beam Focus Direction a Beam Focus Spectrum is calculated, consisting, for each of the plurality of frequency components, of time-dependent, real-valued attenuation factors being calculated based on the plurality of microphone signals. For each of the plurality of frequency components, the maximum amongst those attenuation factors of different Beam Focus Spectra is selected and multiplied with the frequency component of the complex-valued frequency-domain signal of one microphone, forming a frequency-domain multi-focus directional output signal, from which by means of inverse transformation a time-domain signal can be synthesized.

[0044] Fig. 1 shows a flow diagram 1000 illustrating individual processing steps 1010 to 1050 according to a method for generating a directional output signal from sound received by at least two microphones arranged as microphone array according to a first aspect. According to other embodiments, there are three or even more microphones arranged closed to each other forming a microphone array to capture sound present in the environment of the microphones. The generated directional output signal has at least two Beam Focus Directions. The microphones are arranged, e.g., inside a car to pick up voice signals of a driver as well of other persons sitting in the car. The microphones form a microphone array meaning that the sound signals received at the microphones are processed to generate a directional output signal having at least two Beam Focus directions. According to an embodiment, time-domain signals of two, three, ore more microphones being arranged in a microphone array, e.g. inside a car, are converted into time discrete digital signals by analog-to-digital conversion of the signals received by the microphones by means of, e.g., one or more analog-digital converters. Blocks of time discrete digital signal samples of converted time-domain signals are, after preferably appropriate windowing, by using, e.g., a Hann Window, transformed into frequency domain signals Mi(f) also referred to as microphone spectra, preferably using an appropriate transformation method like, e.g., Fast Fourier Transformation, (step 1010). Mi(f) are addressed as complex-valued frequency domain microphone signals distinguished by the frequency f, where i=0..n indicates the microphone, and n+1 is the total number of microphones forming the microphone array. Each of the complex-valued frequency domain microphone signals comprises a frequency component value for each of a plurality of frequency components, with one component for each frequency f. The frequency component value is a representation of magnitude and phase of the respective microphone signal at a certain frequency f.

[0045] According to an embodiment, for each of the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signals, a Beam Focus Spectrum is calculated in step 1020 for each Beam Focus Direction. The Beam Focus Directions define directions of desired Beam Foci. E.g., one Beam Focus is directed to the position of the driver of the car and another Beam Focus is directed to the position of another passage of the car, like the co-driver. The Beam Focus Spectrum then comprises, for each of the plurality of frequency components, real-valued attenuation factors. Among the attenuation factors of at least two different Beam Focus Spectra for each frequency component the maximum is selected in step 1030, i.e. the one having the greatest absolute value being the maximum or selected attenuation factor. [0046] In a next step 1040, for each of the plurality of frequency components, the selected maximum attenuation factor is multiplied with the frequency component value of the complex-valued frequency-domain microphone signal of one of said microphones, preferably the microphone closest to the desired sound source(s) or the microphone with highest symmetry, e.g. in the tip of a triangle in case of a three-microphone-array. As a result, a multi-focus directional frequency component value for each frequency component is obtained. From the multi-focus directional frequency component values for each of the plurality of frequency components, a frequency-domain multi-focus directional output signal is formed in step 1050. In other words, the real-valued attenuation factors are calculated to determine how much the respective frequency component values need to be damped for a multitude of Beam Focus Directions, which can then be easily applied by multiplying the respective real valued attenuation factors with respective complex valued frequency components of a microphone signal to generate the (multi-)directional output signal. Contrary to state of the art Beam Forming approaches, according to the present implementation, it is not required to add or subtract microphone signals, which then often have the disadvantage of losing signal components in the lower frequency bands which need to be compensated with the further disadvantage of lowering the signal to noise ratio. According to the present implementation, the selected attenuation factors for all frequency components form a kind of real-valued Multi-Focus Direction vector which just needs to be multiplied with the respective complex valued frequency-domain microphone signal to achieve the frequency-domain multi-focus directional output signal, which is algorithmically simple and robust.

[0047] According to an embodiment, a time-domain multi-focus directional output signal is synthesized from the frequency-domain multi-focus directional output signal by means of inverse transformation, using a respective appropriate transformation from the frequency domain into the time domain like, e.g., inverse Fast Fourier Transformation.

[0048] According to an embodiment, calculating the Beam Focus Spectrum for a respective Beam Focus Direction comprises, for each of the plurality of frequency components of the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signals of said microphones, to calculate real-valued Beam Spectra values by means of predefined, microphone-specific, time-constant, complex-valued Transfer Functions. The Beam Spectra values are arguments of a Characteristic Function with values between zero and one. The calculated Beam Spectra values for all frequencies f then form the Beam Focus Spectrum for the respective Beam Focus Direction.

[0049] Another aspect will now be described with reference to Fig. 4 which shows an exemplary processing of the microphone spectra in a Beam Focus Calculator 130 for calculating the Beam Focus Spectra F _j (f) from signals of two microphones. According to an example, in step 310, predefined complex valued Transfer Functions Hij(f) are used. Each Transfer Function Hij(f) is a predefined, microphone-specific, time-constant complex valued Transfer Functions for a predefined Beam Focus j and microphone i. With the predefined complex valued Transfer Functions Hij(f) real-valued Beam Spectra values Bij(f) are calculated, where index i identifies the individual microphone and index j identifies the spatial direction of a beam also referred to as the Beam Focus Direction. In this manner, the Beam Spectra are associated with pairs of microphones with index 0 and index i. The Beam Spectra values Bij(f) are calculated from the spectra Mo(f) and Mi(f) of said pair of microphones and said Transfer Functions as quotient as shown in step 320 of Fig. 4:

Bij(f) = I Hoj(f)Mo(f) + H ij (f ) M i (f ) Ei (f ) | / | Mo(f) | .

[0050] In embodiments with more than two microphones forming the Beam Spectrum, the numerator sum of the above quotient contains further products of microphone spectra and Transfer Functions, i.e. the pair of microphones is extended to a set of three or more microphones forming the beam similar to higher order linear Beam Forming approaches.

[0051] According to an embodiment, in the Beam Focus calculation, for each of the plurality of frequency components, the calculated Beam Spectra values Bij(f) are then used as arguments of a Characteristic Function. The Characteristic Function with values between zero and one provides the Beam Focus Spectrum for the respective Beam Focus Direction.

[0052] According to an embodiment, the Characteristic Function C(x) is defined for x>0 and has values C(x)>0. The Characteristic Function influences the shape of the Beam Focus. An exemplary Characteristic Function is, e.g., C(x) = x ^g for x<l, and C(x)=l for x>l, with an exponent g>0 making Beam Forming more (g>l) or less (g<l) effective than conventional linear Beam Forming approaches.

[0053] According to another embodiment, the Characteristic Function is made frequency-dependent as C(x,f), e.g., by means of a frequency-dependent exponent g(f). Such a frequency-dependent Characteristic Function provides the advantage to enable that known frequency-dependent degradations of conventional Beam Forming approaches can be counterbalanced when providing the Beam Focus Spectrum for the respective Beam Focus Direction.

[0054] According to an embodiment, the Beam Spectra Bij(f) are arguments of the Characteristic Functions C(x) forming the Beam Focus Spectrum Fj(f) = P? _=i C (Bij(f)) as shown in step 330. For a certain Focus Direction indexed j, values of C(Bij(f)) of different Beam Spectra are multiplied in case more than one microphone pair (or set) contributes to a Beam Focus Spectrum Fj(f). In the above formula the number of microphones that pairwise contribute to a Beam Focus is o+l. In case of two microphones with indices 0 and 1 being used (o=l), above formula simplifies to Fj(f) = C(Bij(f)). The Beam Focus Spectra Fj(f) are the output of the Beam Focus Calculator which can then be used as attenuation factors for the respective frequency components.

[0055] Fig. 5 shows an exemplary calculation of the predefined Transfer Functions Hij(f) as generally shown in step 310 of Fig. 4 for the calculation of Beam Spectra from signals of two microphones, where the index j again denotes the Beam focus direction. According to an embodiment as depicted in functional block 410, a so-called cardioid characteristic of angular sensitivity of Beam Forming is achieved with Transfer Functions predefined as

[0056] where d denotes the spatial distance of the pair of microphones, preferably between 0.5 and 5 cm and more preferably between 1 and 2.5 cm, c is the speed of sound (343 m/s at 20°C and dry air), and / denotes the imaginary unit / ² =-l not to be confused with the index i identifying different microphones. As an alternative to such analytic predefinition, Transfer Functions can also be calculated, e.g., by way of calibration as taught in DE 10 2010 001 935 A1 or US 9,330,677.

[0057] According to another aspect, the method for generating a directional output signal further comprises steps for compensating for microphone tolerances. Such compensation is in particular useful since microphones used in applications like, e.g., inside a car often have differences in their acoustic properties resulting in slightly different microphone signals for the same sound signals depending on the respective microphone receiving the sound. In order to cope with such situations, according to an embodiment, for each of the plurality of frequency components, correction factors are calculated, that are multiplied with the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signals of at least one of the microphones in order to compensate said differences between microphones. The real-valued correction factors are calculated as temporal average of the frequency component values of a plurality of real-valued Deviation Spectra. Each frequency component value of a Deviation Spectrum of the plurality of real valued Deviation Spectra is calculated by dividing the frequency component magnitude of a frequency-domain reference signal by the frequency component magnitude of the component of the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signal of the respective microphone. Each of the Beam Focus Spectra for the selected Beam Focus Directions are calculated from the respective tolerance-compensated frequency-domain microphone signals.

[0058] Fig. 3 shows an embodiment of a tolerance compensator 120 used for the compensation of the microphone tolerances and which is designed to equalize differences amongst the microphones in terms of sensitivity and frequency response relative to a reference being, for example, one microphone of the microphone array which is referred to as reference microphone and identified with the index i=0. For each microphone with index i>0, Deviation Spectra Di(f) are calculated as quotient of absolute values of microphone spectra Mo(f) and Mi(f) for each of the plurality of frequencies, i.e. Di(f)= I Mo(f) I / 1 Mi(f) I , i=l..n, as shown in step 210. Correction factors Ei(f) are then calculated as temporal average of Deviation Spectra Di(f). According to an embodiment, the average is calculated as moving average of the Deviation spectra Di(f). According to an embodiment, the average is calculated with the restriction that the temporal averaging is only executed if | Mi(f) | is above a selectable threshold as shown in step 220. The threshold value is tuned such that it is well above the intrinsic noise level of the microphones, so that the average is calculated only for acoustic signals, and not for non acoustic noise.

[0059] According to another embodiment (not shown), the threshold-controlled temporal average is executed individually on Mo(f) and Mi(f) prior to their division to calculate the Deviation Spectrum. According to still other embodiments, the temporal averaging itself uses different averaging principles like, e.g., arithmetic averaging or geometric averaging.

[0060] In yet another embodiment, all frequency-specific values of the correction factors Ei(f) are set to the same value, e.g. an average of the different frequency-specific values. On the one hand, such a scalar gain factor compensates only sensitivity differences and not frequency-response differences amongst the microphones. On the other hand, such scalar value can be applied as gain factor on the time signal of microphone with index i, instead of the frequency domain signal of that microphone, making computational implementation easy. Correction factor values Ei(f), i>0, calculated in the Tolerance compensator as shown in step 230 are then used to be multiplied with the frequency component values of the complex valued frequency-domain microphone signal of the respective microphone for tolerance compensation of the microphone. According to an embodiment, the correction factor values are then also used in the Beam Focus Calculator 130 of Fig. 4 to calculate the Beam Spectra based on tolerance compensated microphone spectra, as shown in more detail in step 320.

[0061] According to another aspect, the method for generating a directional output signal further comprises steps for reducing disturbances caused by wind buffeting and in particular in the situation of a microphone array in which only one or at least not all microphones are affected by the turbulent airflow of the wind, e.g. inside a car if a window is open.

[0062] According to an embodiment, a wind-reduced directional output signal is generated by calculating, for each of the plurality of frequency components, real-valued Wind Reduction Factors as minima of the reciprocal frequency components of said Deviation Spectra. For each of the plurality of frequency components, the Wind Reduction Factors are multiplied with the frequency component values of the frequency-domain directional output signal to form the frequency-domain wind-reduced directional output signal.

[0063] Fig. 6 shows an embodiment of a Wind Protector 140 for generating a wind- reduced output signal. According to an embodiment, the Wind Protector makes further use of the Deviation Spectra Di(f) calculated in the Tolerance Compensator 120. For each of the plurality of frequencies, the minimum of the reciprocal values of the Deviation Spectrum components of all microphones except the microphone with index i=0 is calculated in processing step 510, forming the Wind Reduction Spectrum W(f)=min i (1/Di(f)), i=l..n.

[0064] According to an embodiment, a time-domain wind-reduced direction output signal is then synthesized from the frequency-domain wind-reduced directional output signal by means of inverse transformation as described above.

[0065] Fig. 7 shows an embodiment of a Multi-Focus Beam Combiner 150 according to the present invention. For each of the plurality of frequencies, the maximum of the components of the m different Beam Focus Spectra Fj(f) is calculated, forming the Multi- Focus attenuation spectrum A(f)=max _j (Fj(f)), j=l..m as shown in processing step 610. The components of A(f) and optionally also the components of the Wind Reduction Spectrum W(f) are then multiplied with the complex valued components of the microphone spectrum Mo(f) of microphone with index zero, forming the output signal spectrum S(f)=W(f)A(f)Mo(f) being a so-called multi-focus signal spectrum in processing step 620. S(f) is the output signal of the Multi-Focus Beam Combiner 150.

[0066] According to an embodiment, the multi-focus signal spectrum S(f) as generated in step 620 is then inversely transferred into the time domain by, e.g., inverse short-time Fourier transformation with suitable overlap-add technique or any other suitable transformation technique.

[0067] According to another aspect, there is provided a method and an apparatus for generating a noise reduced output signal from sound received by at least two microphones. The method includes transforming the sound received by the microphones into frequency domain microphone signals, being calculated by means of short-time Fourier Transform of analog-to-digital converted time signals corresponding to the sound received by the microphones. The method also includes real-valued Beam Spectra, each of which being calculated, for each of the plurality of frequency components, from at least two microphone signals by means of complex valued Transfer Functions. The method further includes the already discussed Characteristic Function with range between zero and one, with said Beam Spectra as arguments, and multiplying Characteristic Function values of different Beam Spectra in case of a sufficient number of microphones. Characteristic Function values, or products thereof, yield a Beam Focus Spectrum, with a certain Beam Focus direction. The method further incudes, for each of the plurality of frequency components, maximum selection of different Beam Focus Spectra, forming the multi-focus Beam Spectrum, which is then used to generate the multi-focus output signal in the frequency domain.

[0068] The apparatus includes an array of at least two microphones transforming sound received by the microphones into frequency-domain microphone signals of analog-to- digital converted time signals corresponding to the sound received by the microphones. The apparatus also includes a processor to calculate, for each frequency component, Beam Spectra that are calculated from Microphone signals with complex valued Transfer Functions, and a Characteristic Function with range between zero and one and with said Beam Spectra values as arguments of said Characteristic Function, and a multi-focus output signal based on maximum selection of said Characteristic Function values of Beam Focus Spectra with different Beam Focus directions.

[0069] In this manner an apparatus for carrying out an embodiment of the invention can be implemented.

[0070] It is an advantage of the embodiments as described herein that they provide a very stable two-(or more) microphone Beam Forming technique, which is able to provide output signals with more than one Beam Focus direction with a superior signal-to-noise ratio.

[0071] According to an embodiment, in the method according to an aspect of the invention, said Beam Spectrum is calculated for each frequency component as sum of microphone signals multiplied with microphone-specific Transfer Functions that are complex-valued functions of the frequency defining a direction in space also referred to as Beam Focus direction in the context of the present invention.

[0072] According to an embodiment, in the method according to an aspect of the invention, the microphone Transfer Functions are calculated by means of an analytic formula incorporating the spatial distance of the microphones, and the speed of sound.

[0073] According to another embodiment, in the method according to an aspect of the invention, at least one microphone Transfer Function is calculated in a calibration procedure based on a calibration signal, e.g. white noise, which is played back from a predefined spatial position as known in the art.

[0074] A capability to compensate for sensitivity and frequency response deviations amongst the used microphones is another advantage of the present invention. Based on adaptively calculated deviation spectra, tolerance compensation correction factors are calculated, which correct frequency response and sensitivity differences of the microphones relative to a reference.

[0075] According to an embodiment, minimum selection amongst reciprocal values of said deviation vectors is used to calculate Wind Reduction factors, which reduce signal disturbances caused by wind buffeting into the microphones.

[0076] The output signal according to an embodiment is used as replacement of a microphone signal in any suitable spectral signal processing method or apparatus.

[0077] In this manner a beam-formed time-domain output signal is generated by transforming the frequency domain output signal into a discrete time-domain signal by means of inverse Fourier Transform with an overlap-add technique on consecutive inverse Fourier Transform frames, which then can be further processed, or send to a communication channel, or output to a loudspeaker, or the like.

[0078] Fig. 2 shows a block diagram of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, respectively a flow diagram illustrating individual processing steps of a method for generating a noise reduced output signal from sound received by at least two microphones with index i=0 ... n, exemplarily depicted as microphones 100, 101, and 102, some of the blocks/steps are optional. Respective time-domain signals si(t) of the microphones with index i of the two, three, ore more microphones 100, 101, 102 are converted into time discrete digital signals, and blocks of signal samples of the time- domain signals are, after appropriate windowing (e.g. Hann Window), transformed into frequency domain signals Mi(f) also referred to as microphone spectra, using a transformation method known in the art (e.g. Fast Fourier Transform), illustrated as functional block 110. Mi (f) are addressed as complex-valued frequency domain signals distinguished by the frequency f, where i=0...n indicates the microphone, and n+1 is the total number of microphones forming a microphone array according to an aspect of the present disclosure.

[0079] According to an embodiment, the microphone tolerance compensator 120, as explained in more detail with respect to Fig. 3, is configured to calculate correction factors Ei(f), i>0, which - when multiplied with the respective microphone spectrum Mi(f) - compensate the differences amongst the microphones with respect to sensitivity and frequency response. Correction factors are calculated with relation to a reference, which can be one of the microphones of the array, or an average of two or more microphones. For the sake of simplicity the reference spectrum is referred to as Mo(f) in this description. Application of said tolerance compensation correction factors is however considered as optional.

[0080] According to an embodiment, the Beam Focus Calculator 130 as explained in more detail with respect to Fig. 4, is configured to calculate the real valued Focus Spectra Fj(f) for each out of m Beam Focus directions with index j.

[0081] According to an embodiment, the Wind Protector 140 as explained in more detail with respect to Fig. 6, is configured to calculate the Wind Reduction Spectrum, which - when multiplied to a microphone spectrum Mi(f) - reduces the unwanted effect of wind buffeting that occurs when wind turbulences hit a microphone. Application of the Wind Reduction Spectrum is however considered as optional.

[0082] According to an embodiment, the multi-focus beam combiner 150 as explained in more detail with respect to Fig. 7, is configured to calculate the multi-focus Beam Spectrum S(f) out of two or more beams with different focus directions. [0083] According to an embodiment, S(f) is inversely transferred by Time-Signal Synthesizer 160 as shown in Fig. 2 into the time domain with state of the art transformation methods such as inverse short-time Fourier transform with suitable overlap-add technique. The resulting time domain signal can be further processed in any way known in the art, e.g. sent over information transmission channels, or the like.

[0084] According to another embodiment, threshold-controlled temporal average is executed individually on Mo(f) and Mi(f) prior to their division. Temporal averaging itself has also different embodiments, e.g. arithmetic average or geometric average as well- known in the art.

[0085] In another embodiment, the Characteristic Function C(x) as described above (see Fig. 4) is applied on the attenuation spectrum A(f), and not on the individual Beam Spectra Bij(f), i.e. after the and not prior to the maximum operation of step 610.

[0086] In yet another embodiment, Mo(f) is the frequency-domain signal of a sum or mixture or linear combination of signals of more than one of the microphones of an array, and not just this signal of one microphone with index 0.

[0087] The methods as described herein in connection with embodiments of the present invention can also be combined with other microphone array techniques, where at least two microphones are used. The output signal of one of the embodiments as described herein can, e.g., replace the voice microphone signal in a method as disclosed in US 13/618,234. Or the output signals are further processed by applying signal processing techniques as, e.g., described in German patent DE 10 2004 005 998 B3, which discloses methods for separating acoustic signals from a plurality of acoustic sound signals. As described in German patent DE 10 2004 005 998 B3, the output signals are then further processed by applying a filter function to their signal spectra wherein the filter function is selected so that acoustic signals from an area around a preferred angle of incidence are amplified relative to acoustic signals outside this area.

[0088] Another advantage of the described embodiments is the nature of the disclosed inventive methods and apparatus, which smoothly allow sharing processing resources with another important feature of telephony, namely so called Acoustic Echo Cancelling as described, e.g., in German patent DE 100 43 064 B4. This reference describes a technique using a filter system which is designed to remove loudspeaker-generated sound signals from a microphone signal. This technique is applied if the handset or the like is used in a hands-free mode instead of the standard handset mode. In hands-free mode, the telephone is operated in a bigger distance from the mouth, and the information of the noise microphone is less useful. Instead, there is knowledge about the source signal of another disturbance, which is the signal of the handset loudspeaker. This disturbance must be removed from the voice microphone signal by means of Acoustic Echo Cancelling. Because of synergy effects between the embodiments of the present invention and Acoustic Echo Cancelling, the complete set of required signal processing components can be implemented very resource-efficient, i.e. being used for carrying out the embodiments described therein as well as the Acoustic Echo Cancelling, and thus with low memory- and power-consumption of the overall apparatus leading to low energy consumption, which increases battery life times of such portable devices. Acoustic Echo cancelling is only required to be carried out on one microphone (with index i=0), instead of all microphones of an array, as required by conventional Beam Forming approaches.

[0089] It will be readily apparent to the skilled person that the methods, the elements, units and apparatuses described in connection with embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in hardware, in software, or as a combination thereof. Embodiments of the invention and the elements of modules described in connection therewith may be implemented by a computer program or computer programs running on a computer or being executed by a microprocessor, DSP (digital signal processor), or the like. Computer program products according to embodiments of the present invention may take the form of any storage medium, data carrier, memory or the like suitable to store a computer program or computer programs comprising code portions for carrying out embodiments of the invention when being executed. Any apparatus implementing the invention may in particular take the form of a computer, DSP system, hands-free phone set in a vehicle or the like, or a mobile device such as a telephone handset, mobile phone, a smart phone, a PDA, tablet computer, or anything alike.

[0090] The foregoing detailed description has set forth various embodiments of the devices and/or processes via the use of block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples. Insofar as such block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples contain one or more functions and/or operations, it will be understood by those within the art that each function and/or operation within such block diagrams, flowcharts, or examples can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or virtually any combination thereof. In accordance with at least one embodiment, several portions of the subject matter described herein may be implemented via Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), digital signal processors (DSPs), or other integrated formats. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that some aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, in whole or in part, can be equivalently implemented in integrated circuits, as one or more computer programs running on one or more computers, as one or more programs running on one or more processors, as firmware, or as virtually any combination thereof, and that designing the circuitry and/or writing the code for the software and or firmware would be well within the skill of one of skill in the art in light of this disclosure.

[0091] In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the mechanisms of the subject matter described herein are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that an illustrative embodiment of the subject matter described herein applies regardless of the particular type of non-transitory signal bearing medium used to actually carry out the distribution. Examples of a non-transitory signal bearing medium include, but are not limited to, the following: a recordable type medium such as a floppy disk, a hard disk drive, a Compact Disc (CD), a Digital Video Disk (DVD), a digital tape, a computer memory, etc.; and a transmission type medium such as a digital and/or an analog communication medium (e.g., a fiber optic cable, a waveguide, a wired communications link, a wireless communication link, etc.).

[0092] With respect to the use of substantially any plural and/or singular terms herein, those having skill in the art can translate from the plural to the singular and/or from the singular to the plural as is appropriate to the context and/or application. The various singular/plural permutations may be expressly set forth herein for sake of clarity.

[0093] Thus, particular embodiments of the subject matter have been described. Other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims. In some cases, the actions recited in the claims can be performed in a different order and still achieve desirable results. In addition, the processes depicted in the accompanying figures do not necessarily require the particular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirable results. In certain implementations, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous.