Method and system to determine a sound source direction using small microphone arrays

1. A method, practiced by way of a processor, to determine the direction of a sound source near a multi-microphone array comprising the steps of:

capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

calculating a complex coherence between all microphone signal pairs;

determining an edge value for each microphone signal pair using an aspect of the complex coherence, wherein the aspect of the complex coherence is a phase angle of the complex coherence;

estimating, by utilizing the edge value, a sound source direction relative to the microphone array; and

transmitting, to a device, a signal including the sound source direction relative to the microphone array, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on sound source direction included in the signal.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the phase angle is estimated between real and imaginary parts of the complex coherence.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the microphones in the microphone array are spaced between 10 mm and 20 mm apart.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the microphone array comprises 4 microphones arranged as a regular polyhedron, wherein the regular polyhedron is a triangle-based pyramid.

5. A method, practiced by way of a processor, to determine the direction of a sound source near a multi-microphone array comprising the steps of:

capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

calculating a complex coherence between all microphone signal pairs;

determining an edge value for each microphone signal pair using an aspect of the complex coherence, wherein the aspect of the complex coherence is an imaginary part of the complex coherence;

estimating, by utilizing the edge value, a sound source direction relative to the microphone array; and

transmitting, to a device, a signal including the sound source direction relative to the microphone array, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on sound source direction included in the signal.

6. A method, practiced by way of a processor, to determine the direction of a sound source near a multi-microphone array comprising the steps of:

capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

calculating a complex coherence between all microphone signal pairs;

determining an edge value for each microphone signal pair using an aspect of the complex coherence, wherein the edge value is represented by STATUS_XY, and wherein the step of determining the edge value for each microphone signal pair includes the steps of:

1. Determining AV_IMAG_CXY by averaging of an aspect of the complex coherence between microphones X and Y, wherein the averaging comprises taking a mean of the aspect of the complex coherence between the microphones X and Y, wherein AV_IMAG_CXY is an average value of an imaginary component of the complex coherence.

2. Comparing AV_IMAG_CXY to a threshold value T

3. and based on the comparison of step 2, setting the STATUS_XY to:

a. If AV_IMAG_CXY<−T then STATUS_XY=−1.

b. If −T<AV_IMAG_CXY<T then STATUS_XY=0.

c. If AV_IMAG_CXY>T then STATUS_XY=1, and

estimating, by utilizing the edge value, a sound source direction relative to the microphone array; and

transmitting, to a device, a signal including the sound source direction relative to the microphone array, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on sound source direction included in the signal.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the STATUS_XY edge status value is frequency dependent.

8. A method, practiced by way of a processor, to determine the direction of a sound source near a multi-microphone array comprising the steps of:

capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

calculating a complex coherence between all microphone signal pairs;

determining an edge value for each microphone signal pair using an aspect of the complex coherence, wherein the edge value is represented by STATUS_XY, and wherein the step of determining the edge value for each microphone signal pair includes the steps of:

1. Determining AV_IMAG_CXY by averaging of an aspect of the complex coherence between microphones X and Y, wherein the averaging comprises taking a mean of the aspect of the complex coherence between the microphones X and Y, wherein AV_IMAG_CXY is an average value of an imaginary component of the complex coherence;

2. setting the STATUS_XY to any value between −1 and 1.0, where STATUS_XY=c/AV_IMAG_CXY, where c is a scalar value; and

estimating, by utilizing the edge value, a sound source direction relative to the microphone array; and

transmitting, to a device, a signal including the sound source direction relative to the microphone array, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on sound source direction included in the signal.

9. A method, practiced by way of a processor, to determine the direction of a sound source near a multi-microphone array comprising the steps of:

capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

calculating a complex coherence between all microphone signal pairs;

determining an edge value for each microphone signal pair using an aspect of the complex coherence;

estimating, by utilizing the edge value, a sound source direction relative to the microphone array, wherein the step of estimating the sound source direction relative to the microphone array comprises the steps:

1. estimating the location of the source on the x, y, or z axis, and calculating an element by element sum of the product of the x, y or z axis component of each microphone pair edge vector, with the edge value;

2. calculating a vector from a location within the microphone array to the estimated x, y, z location of the sound source, and

transmitting, to a device, a signal including the sound source direction relative to the microphone array, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on sound source direction included in the signal.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the sound source direction is frequency dependent.

11. A method, practiced by way of a processor, to determine a voice activity status (VAS) proximal to a microphone array comprising the steps of:

1. capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

2. estimating the direction of a sound source at a given time instance;

3. determining a time variation in the sound source direction, wherein the variation is determined as an angle fluctuation expressed in degrees per second;

4. determining a VAS based on the time variation value from step 3, wherein the VAS is set to 1 if the time variation is below a predetermined threshold that is equal to 5 degrees per second, wherein a microphone gain value is determined based on the VAS, and wherein the method further comprises generating the microphone gain based on the VAS, and the VAS is converted to a time-smoothed VAS value that has a continuous possible range of values between 0.0 and 1.0; and

5. transmitting, to a device, a signal including the direction of the sound source and the VAS, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on the direction of the sound source included in the signal.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising determining a complex coherence between microphone signal pairs of the at least 4 microphone signals of the microphone array.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the microphones in the microphone array are spaced between 10 mm and 20 mm apart.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein the microphone array comprises 4 microphones arranged as a regular polyhedron.

15. A method, practiced by way of a processor, to determine a voice activity status (VAS) proximal to a microphone array comprising the steps of:

1. capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

2. estimating the direction of a sound source at a given time instance;

3. determining a time variation in the sound source direction, wherein the variation is determined as an angle fluctuation expressed in degrees per second;

4. determining a VAS based on the time variation value from step 3, wherein the VAS is set to 1 if the time variation is below a predetermined threshold that is equal to 5 degrees per second, wherein a microphone gain value is determined based on the VAS, and wherein the method further comprises generating the microphone gain based on the VAS, and the VAS is converted to a time-smoothed VAS value that has a continuous possible range of values between 0.0 and 1.0, wherein the generated microphone gain is applied to at least one of the at least 4 microphone signals; and

5. transmitting, to a device, a signal including the direction of the sound source and the VAS, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on the direction of the sound source included in the signal.

16. A method, practiced by way of a processor, to determine a voice activity status (VAS) proximal to a microphone array comprising the steps of:

1. capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

2. estimating the direction of a sound source at a given time instance;

3. determining a time variation in the sound source direction, wherein the variation is determined as an angle fluctuation expressed in degrees per second;

4. determining a VAS based on the time variation value from step 3, wherein the VAS is set to 1 if the time variation is below a predetermined threshold that is equal to 5 degrees per second, wherein the VAS and a corresponding microphone gain value are frequency dependent; and

5. transmitting, to a device, a signal including the direction of the sound source and the VAS, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on the direction of the sound source included in the signal.

17. A system, comprising:

a microphone array including microphones; and

a processor that performs operations comprising:

capturing at least 4 microphone signals of a microphone array;

calculating a complex coherence between all microphone signal pairs;

determining an edge value for each microphone signal pair using an aspect of the complex coherence, wherein the aspect of the complex coherence is a phase angle of the complex coherence;

estimating, by utilizing the edge value, a sound source direction relative to the microphone array; and

transmitting, to a device, a signal including the sound source direction relative to the microphone array, wherein a parameter of the device is adjusted based on sound source direction included in the signal.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the microphones in the microphone array are spaced between 10 mm and 20 mm apart.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein the microphone array comprises 4 microphones arranged as a regular polyhedron.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein the operations further comprise activating a device if a voice activity status is equal to 1, and wherein the operations further comprise deactivating the electronic device if the voice activity status is not equal to 1.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the device is at least one of a light switch, an audio reproduction device, a medical device or a security device.