Noise cancellation system
View Patent ↗A noise cancellation system for an audio system such as a mobile phone handset, or a wireless phone headset has a first input for receiving a first audio signal from one or more microphone positioned to receive ambient noise, and a second input for receiving a second audio signal from a microphone positioned to detect the user's speech, as well as a third input for receiving a third audio signal for example representing the speech of a person to whom the user is talking. A first noise cancellation block receives the first audio signal and generates a first noise cancellation signal, and this is combined with the third audio signal to form a first audio output signal. A second noise cancellation block receives at least a part of the first audio signal and said second audio signal and applying noise cancellation to generate a second audio output signal.
1. A noise cancellation system, comprising:
a first input for receiving a first audio signal comprising signals from a plurality of microphones;
a second input for receiving a second audio signal;
a third input for receiving a third audio signal;
a first combiner, for combining said third audio signal and a first noise cancellation signal and generating a first audio output signal;
a first noise cancellation block for receiving said first audio signal and generating the first noise cancellation signal, wherein a second combiner is used to combine the signals from the plurality of microphones and pass the combined signals to the first noise cancellation block;
a second noise cancellation block for receiving said second audio signal and a part of said first audio signal, as selected from only one of the microphones, and applying noise cancellation to generate a second audio output signal; and
a selector, for selecting the signal from only one of the microphones, and for passing the selected signal to the second noise cancellation block.
2. A noise cancellation system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the selector comprises a level detector, for selecting the largest signal of the signals from the plurality of microphones.
3. A noise cancellation system, comprising:
a first input for receiving a first audio signal;
a second input for receiving a second audio signal;
a third input for receiving a third audio signal;
a first noise cancellation block for receiving said first audio signal and generating a first noise cancellation signal;
a first combiner, for combining said third audio signal and said first noise cancellation signal and generating a first audio output signal; and
a second noise cancellation block for receiving at least a part of said first audio signal and said second audio signal and applying noise cancellation to generate a second audio output signal,
wherein the first noise cancellation block includes a feedforward noise cancellation block and further comprises:
a digital filter, for receiving said signal representative of ambient noise, said signal representative of ambient noise having a first sample rate;
a decimator, connected to the input to receive the signal representative of ambient noise and to generate a decimated signal at a second sample rate lower than the first sample rate; and
a processor, wherein the processor comprises:
an emulation of the digital filter, connected to receive the decimated signal and to generate an emulated filter output; and
a control circuit, for generating a control signal on the basis of the emulated filter output,
wherein the control signal is applied to the digital filter to control a filter characteristic thereof.
4. A noise cancellation system as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the processor comprises:
a source input, for receiving said audio signal; and
an adder, for forming a sum of the emulated filter output and the audio signal,
wherein the control circuit is configured to generate the control signal on the basis of a comparison between said sum of the emulated filter output and the audio signal and a threshold value.
5. A noise cancellation system as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the emulation of the digital filter comprises a lower order approximation of the digital filter.
6. A noise cancellation system as claimed in claim 5 , wherein the digital filter comprises a sixth order IIR filter, and the emulation of the digital filter comprises a second order approximation of the digital filter.
7. A noise cancellation system as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the digital filter comprises a fixed part and an adaptive part.
8. A noise cancellation system as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the emulation of the digital filter comprises an emulation of the adaptive part of the digital filter.
9. A noise cancellation system as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the filter characteristic is a cut-off frequency of the digital filter.