US 12,245,015 B2
Directional audio pickup guided by face detection
Ragnvald Balch Barth, Oslo (NO); and Sindre Groestad, Oslo (NO)
Assigned to CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed by Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed on Apr. 28, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/731,328.
Prior Publication US 2023/0353966 A1, Nov. 2, 2023
Int. Cl. H04S 5/00 (2006.01); H04R 3/00 (2006.01)
CPC H04S 5/00 (2013.01) [H04R 3/005 (2013.01); H04R 2430/20 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
determining, using a multi-microphone array, a direction of arrival of sound signals from a user;
detecting, using an image from a camera, a face of the user;
determining a position of the face of the user with respect to a position of the camera; and
forming a spatial beam for the multi-microphone array based on the direction of arrival of sound signals from the user and the position of the face of the user, wherein forming the spatial beam for the multi-microphone array includes widening the spatial beam for the multi-microphone array to include both a location of the user and a location to which the user is looking when the user is looking away from a position of the camera.