Noise removal for electronic device with far field microphone on console

1. A method for reduction of noise in a device having a console with one or more microphones and a source of narrow band distributed noise located on the console, the method comprising:

obtaining a signal from the one or more microphones containing a broad band distributed desired sound and narrow band distributed noise from the source located on the console;

dividing the signal amongst a plurality of frequency bins; for each frequency bin, determining whether a portion of the signal within the frequency bin belongs to a narrow band distribution characteristic of the source of narrow band noise located on the console by generating a feature vector from a logarithm of a power-spectrum of the signal and comparing the feature vector against a pre-trained model; and

filtering from the signal any frequency bins containing portions of the signal belonging to the narrow band distribution.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining whether a portion of the signal within the frequency bin belongs to the narrow band distribution includes comparing a value corresponding to the portion of the signal in the frequency bin to a stored value for that frequency bin derived from a known signal from the source of narrow band noise located on the console.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more microphones include a first microphone and a second microphone, wherein, obtaining a signal from the one or more microphones includes obtaining a first signal from the first microphone and obtaining a second signal from the second microphone, wherein determining whether a portion of the signal within the frequency bin belongs to the narrow band distribution includes determining a first vector feature from the first signal and obtaining a second vector feature from the second signal, concatenating the first and second signals to form a combined vector feature and matching the combined feature vector against a model.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein dividing the signal amongst a plurality of frequency bins includes capturing a time-windowed portion of the signal, converting the time-windowed portion to a frequency domain signal and dividing the frequency domain signal amongst the plurality of frequency bins.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the broad band distributed desired sound is a voice sound.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the source of narrow band distributed noise is a disk drive.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the broad band distributed desired sound is characterized by a Gaussian-distributed probability density function.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the narrow band noise is characterized by a gamma-distributed probability density function.

9. An electronic device, comprising:

a console;

one or more microphones located on the console;

a source of narrow band distributed noise located on the console;

a processor coupled to the microphone;

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory having embodied therein a set of processor readable instructions for implementing a method for reduction of noise, the processor readable instructions including:

instructions which, when executed, cause the device to obtain a signal from the one or more microphones containing a broad band distributed desired sound and narrow band distributed noise from the source located on the console by generating a feature vector from a logarithm of a power-spectrum of the signal and comparing the feature vector against a pre-trained model;

instructions which, when executed, divide the signal amongst a plurality of frequency bins;

instructions which, when executed, determine, for each frequency bin, whether a portion of the signal within the frequency bin belongs to a narrow band distribution characteristic of the source of narrow band noise located on the console; and

instructions which, when executed, filter from the signal any frequency bins containing portions of the signal belonging to the narrow band distribution.

10. The device of claim 9 , wherein the instructions which, when executed, determine whether a portion of the signal within the frequency bin belongs to the narrow band distribution include one or more instructions which, when executed, compare a value corresponding to the portion of the signal in the frequency bin to a stored value for that frequency bin derived from a known signal from the source of narrow band noise located on the console.

11. The device of claim 10 further comprising a look-up table stored in the memory, wherein the look-up table contains the stored value.

12. The device of claim 9 , wherein the one or more microphones include a first microphone and a second microphone.

13. The device of claim 9 wherein the instructions which, when executed, obtain a signal from the one or more microphones include one or more instructions which, when executed cause the device to obtain a first signal from a first microphone and obtain a second signal from a second microphone, wherein determining whether a portion of the signal within the frequency bin belongs to the narrow band distribution includes determining a first vector feature from the first signal and obtaining a second vector feature from the second signal, concatenating the first and second signals to form a combined vector feature and matching the combined feature vector against a model.

14. The device of claim 9 wherein instructions which, when executed, divide the signal amongst a plurality of frequency bins include instructions which, when executed, directed the device to capture a time-windowed portion of the signal, converting the time-windowed portion to a frequency domain signal and divide the frequency domain signal amongst the plurality of frequency bins.

15. The device of claim 9 wherein the broad band distributed desired sound is a voice sound.

16. The device of claim 9 wherein the source of narrow band distributed noise is a disk drive.

17. The device of claim 9 wherein the broad band distributed desired sound is characterized by a Gaussian-distributed probability density function.

18. The device of claim 9 wherein the narrow band noise is characterized by a gamma-distributed probability density function.

19. The device of claim 9 , wherein the console is a video game console.

20. The device of claim 9 wherein the console is a cable television set top box or a digital video recorder.

21. A processor readable medium having embodied therein a set of processor executable instructions for implementing a method for reduction of noise in an electronic device having a console, one or more microphones located on the console, a source of narrow band distributed noise located on the console, a processor coupled to the microphone and

a memory coupled to the processor, the processor readable instructions including:

instructions which, when executed, cause the device to obtain a signal from the one or more microphones containing a broad band distributed desired sound and narrow band distributed noise from the source located on the console;

instructions which, when executed, divide the signal amongst a plurality of frequency bins;

instructions which, when executed, determine, for each frequency bin, whether a portion of the signal within the frequency bin belongs to a narrow band distribution characteristic of the source of narrow band noise located on the console by generating a feature vector from a logarithm of a power-spectrum of the signal and comparing the feature vector against a pre-trained model; and

instructions which, when executed, filter from an output signal any frequency bins containing portions of the signal belonging to the narrow band distribution.