Electronic device and reverberation removal method therefor

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017309294-A1
Application number	US-201415517855-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 7, 2014
Priority date	Oct 7, 2014
Publication date	Oct 26, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

Provided are an electronic device and a reverberation removal method therefor. The reverberation removal method for an electronic device comprises: a plurality of microphone units for receiving a user's voice; a reverberation removal unit removing a reverberation component of the user's voice received from the plurality of microphone units so as to acquire an original component of the user's voice; a reverberation information acquisition unit for acquiring information on the intensity of the reverberation component of the user's voice; and a post-processing unit for additionally removing a reverberation component from the original component acquired from the reverberation removal unit on the basis of the information on the intensity of the reverberation component.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An electronic device comprising:
a plurality of microphone units configured to receive a user voice; a reverberation removal unit configured to acquire an original component of the user voice by removing a reverberation component of the user voice received from the plurality of microphone units; a reverberation information acquisition unit configured to acquire information on an intensity of the reverberation component of the user voice; and a post-processing unit configured to additionally remove a reverberation component from the original component acquired from the reverberation removal unit on the basis of the information on the intensity of the reverberation component.

2 . The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the reverberation removal unit is configured to acquire the original component of the user voice by removing the reverberation component of the user voice by using a minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer.

3 . The electronic device of claim 2 , wherein the MVDR beamformer is implemented by using a generalized sidelobe canceller.

4 . The electronic device of claim 3 , wherein the generalized sidelobe canceller comprises:
a fixed beamformer configured to extract a user voice of an original component from the user voice received from the plurality of microphone units; a blocking matrix configured to block the original component of the user voice received from the plurality of microphone units; and an adaptive noise canceller configured to adaptively cancel a reverberation component from the user voice of the original component by using the user voice with the original component removed.

5 . The electronic device of claim 4 , wherein the fixed beamformer is a delay and sum (DS) beamformer.

6 . The electronic device of claim 4 , further comprising an original component measurement unit configured to measure an original component from the plurality of microphone units, and
wherein the blocking matrix is configured to block the original component of the user voice received from the plurality of microphone units by using the original component outputted from the original component measurement unit.

7 . The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the reverberation removal unit comprises:
a fixed beamformer configured to extract a user voice of an original component from the user voice received from the plurality of microphone units; and a blind source separation (BSS)-based blocking matrix configured to block the original component of the user voice received from the plurality of microphone units.

8 . The electronic device of claim 7 , wherein the post-processing unit is configured to remove, from the user voice of the original component outputted from the fixed beamformer, the reverberation component of the user voice by filtering the user voice with the original component removed, which is outputted from the BSS-based blocking matrix.

9 . A method for removing a reverberation of an electronic device, the method comprising:
a step of receiving a user voice via a plurality of microphones; a step of acquiring an original component of the user voice by removing a reverberation component of the user voice received from the plurality of microphones; a step of acquiring information on an intensity of the reverberation component of the user voice; and a post-processing step of additionally removing a reverberation component from the acquired original component on the basis of the information on the intensity of the reverberation component.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the step of acquiring the original component of the user voice acquires the original component of the user voice by removing the reverberation component of the user voice by using a minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer.

11 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the MVDR beamformer is implemented by using a generalized sidelobe canceller.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the step of acquiring the original component of the user voice comprises:
a step of extracting, by a fixed beamformer, a user voice of an original component from the user voice received from the plurality of microphones; a step of blocking, by a blocking matrix, the original component of the user voice received from the plurality of microphones; and a step of adaptively cancelling, by an adaptive noise canceller, a reverberation component from the user voice of the original component by using the user voice with the original component removed.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the fixed beamformer is a delay and sum (DS) beamformer.

14 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising measuring an original component from the plurality of microphones, and
wherein the blocking matrix is configured to block the original component of the user voice received from the plurality of microphones by using the original component.

15 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the step of acquiring the original component of the user voice comprises:
a step of extracting, by a fixed beamformer, a user voice of an original component from the user voice received from the plurality of microphones; and a step of blocking, by a blind source separation (BSS)-based blocking matrix, the original component of the user voice received from the plurality of microphones.

Assignees

• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd
• Bar-Ilan Res & Dev Company Ltd

Inventors

• Gannot Sharon
• Habets Emanuel A P
• Shvarts Ofer
• Cho Nam-Gook

Classifications

• G10L21/0208 Primary

  Noise filtering · CPC title

• H04R1/406

  microphones · CPC title

• G10L2021/02166

  Microphone arrays; Beamforming · CPC title

• G10L21/0272

  Voice signal separating · CPC title

• G10L21/0232 Primary

  Processing in the frequency domain · CPC title