Vehicle communication system

1. A vehicle communication system comprising:

a plurality of microphones configured to detect audio signals including speech signals of at least one vehicle passenger;

a beamforming unit configured to receive the audio signals from the plurality of microphones and to generate a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to vehicle seat positions;

a mixer combining the audio signal components to produce a resulting speech output signal;

a seat occupancy detecting unit to detect the presence of non-occupied vehicle seats;

a weighting unit configured to determine a weighting for each of the audio signal components, where the weighting unit sets the weighting of audio signal components of non-occupied seats to zero and where the weightings are applied when the audio signal components are combined to produce the resulting speech output signal; and

an output loudspeaker beamforming unit, where the loudspeaker beamforming unit directs the output of loudspeakers only to occupied seat positions.

2. A method for controlling a speech output of a vehicle communication system, the method comprising:

detecting speech signals of at least one vehicle passenger using a plurality of microphones, each microphone producing an audio signal;

generating a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to a plurality of vehicle seat positions using the audio signals from the microphones;

applying a weighting to each of the audio signal components, the weightings based upon a combination of acoustical and non-acoustical information about the presence of vehicle passengers; and

combining the weighted audio signal components to generate a resulting speech output signal.

3. The method of claim 2 , where the weighting for the signal components for a predetermined vehicle seat position is set to zero when it is detected that there is no passenger in the vehicle seat position.

4. The method of claim 2 , where the resulting speech output signal is used for the voice controlled operation of a vehicle component.

5. The method of claim 2 , where the resulting speech output signal is used for a conference call with an external subscriber and at least two vehicle passengers.

6. The method of claim 2 , where the resulting speech output signal is used for communication of different vehicle passengers with each other.

7. The method of claim 2 , further including adding the different weighted signal components detected by the microphone to the resulting speech output signal.

8. The method of claim 2 , further including controlling the output of the resulting speech output signal with a plurality of loudspeakers depending upon the non-acoustical information about the presence of a vehicle passenger for a predetermined vehicle position.

9. The method of claim 8 , where the output of the resulting speech output signal produced by the loudspeakers is optimized for a vehicle seat position, for which it has been determined that a passenger is present.

10. The method of claim 2 , where the signal of a seat pressure sensor is used for detecting the presence of a passenger.

11. The method of claim 2 , where the signal of an image sensor is used for detecting the presence of a passenger.

12. The method of claim 2 , where detecting the speech signal of a vehicle passenger is based upon the signal from an image sensor, where the image sensor generates moving pictures to determine whether a passenger's lips are moving, and where the components of the resulting speech output signal are weighted based upon signal components arising from passengers that are actually speaking.

13. A method of controlling a speech output of a vehicle communication system, the method comprising:

detecting speech signals of at least one vehicle passenger using a plurality of microphones, each microphone producing an audio signal;

generating a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to a plurality of vehicle seat positions using the audio signals from the microphones;

applying a weighting to each of the audio signal components, the weightings based upon a combination of acoustical and non-acoustical information about the presence of vehicles passengers;

combining the weighted audio signal components to generate a resulting speech output signal;

detecting the presence of non-occupied seats, where the weighting of signal components of non-occupied seats is set to zero; and

routing the resulting speech output signal to a unit, where the unit directs the output of loudspeakers only to occupied seat positions.

14. A vehicle communication system comprising:

a plurality of microphones adapted to detect speech signals of different vehicle passengers, each microphone producing an audio signal;

a beamforming unit configured to receive the audio signals from the plurality of microphones and to generate a plurality of audio signal components corresponding to vehicle seat positions;

a mixer combining the audio signal components to produce a resulting speech output signal; and

a weighting unit determining the weighting of the audio signal components for the resulting speech output signal, where the weighting unit determines the weighting of the signal components based upon a combination of acoustical and non-acoustical information about the presence of a vehicle passenger.

15. The vehicle communication system of claim 14 , further including a detection sensor electronically coupled between at least one seat of the vehicle and the weighting unit, where the weighting unit determines the weighting of the audio signal components based upon signals received from the detection sensor.

16. The vehicle communication system of claim 15 , where the detection sensor is a vehicle seat pressure sensor.

17. The vehicle communication system of claim 15 , where the detection sensor is an image sensor.

18. The vehicle communication system of claim 17 , where the image sensor is a camera that takes pictures of different vehicle seats and when no passenger is detected on a vehicle seat, the weighting for one or more microphones assigned to pick-up speech from a passenger sitting on that vehicle seat is set to zero.

19. The vehicle communication system of claim 17 , where the image sensor is a camera that takes pictures of different vehicle seats and provides information for determining whether a particular passenger is speaking, and when it is determined that a particular passenger is not speaking, the audio signal from one or more microphones assigned to pick-up speech from that passenger is suppressed.

20. The vehicle communication system of claim 14 , further including a plurality of loudspeakers for outputting the resulting speech output signal, where the use of the different loudspeakers depends upon the information about the presence of a vehicle passenger.

21. The vehicle communication system of claim 14 , where an image sensor detects the speech activity of a vehicle passenger.

22. The vehicle communication system of claim 14 , further including a beamforming unit that generates the audio signal components based on the audio signals detected from the plurality of microphones picking up speech signals from one or more passengers sitting on vehicle seats.

23. The vehicle communication system of claim 14 , further including a loudspeaker beamforming unit electronically coupled between the weighting unit, mixer, and one or more loudspeakers, where the loudspeaker beamforming unit receives information from the weighting unit regarding the presence of a passenger at a predetermined vehicle seat position and directs the output of loudspeakers only to vehicle seat positions occupied by a passenger.

24. The vehicle communication system of claim 14 , where if the presence of a passenger at a predetermined vehicle seat position cannot be detected, the weighting unit sets the weighting of the signal components of the vehicle seat position to zero.