US 12,003,673 B2
Acoustic echo cancellation control for distributed audio devices
Glenn N. Dickins, Sydney (AU); Christopher Graham Hines, Sydney (AU); David Gunawan, Sydney (AU); Richard J. Cartwright, Killara (AU); Alan J. Seefeldt, Alameda, CA (US); Daniel Arteaga, Barcelona (ES); Mark R. P. Thomas, Walnut Creek, CA (US); and Joshua B. Lando, Mill Valley, CA (US)
Assigned to Dolby Laboratories LicensingCorporation, San Francisco, CA (US); and Dolby International AB, Amsterdam Zuidoost (NL)
Appl. No. 17/628,732
Filed by Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation, San Francisco, CA (US); and DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB, Amsterdam Zuidoost (NL)
PCT Filed Jul. 29, 2020, PCT No. PCT/US2020/043958
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Jan. 20, 2022,
PCT Pub. No. WO2021/021857, PCT Pub. Date Feb. 4, 2021.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/705,897, filed on Jul. 21, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/705,410, filed on Jun. 25, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/971,421, filed on Feb. 7, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/950,004, filed on Dec. 18, 2019.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/880,113, filed on Jul. 30, 2019.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/880,122, filed on Jul. 30, 2019.
Claims priority of application No. ES201930702 (ES), filed on Jul. 30, 2019; and application No. 19212391 (EP), filed on Nov. 29, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2023/0319190 A1, Oct. 5, 2023
Int. Cl. H04M 9/08 (2006.01); G10L 15/22 (2006.01)
CPC H04M 9/082 (2013.01) [G10L 15/22 (2013.01); G10L 2015/223 (2013.01)] 24 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An audio session management method, comprising:
receiving output signals from each microphone of a plurality of microphones in an audio environment, each microphone of the plurality of microphones residing in a microphone location of the audio environment, the output signals including signals corresponding to a current utterance of a person;
determining, based on the output signals, one or more aspects of context information relating to the person, the context information including at least one of an estimated current location of the person or an estimated current proximity of the person to one or more microphone locations;
determining a closest loudspeaker-equipped audio device that is closest to the microphone location closest to the estimated current location of the person;
selecting two or more audio devices of the audio environment based, at least in part, on the one or more aspects of the context information, the two or more audio devices each including at least one loudspeaker and wherein the two or more audio devices include the closest loudspeaker-equipped audio device;
determining one or more types of audio processing changes to apply to audio data being rendered to loudspeaker feed signals for the two or more audio devices, the audio processing changes having an effect of increasing a speech to echo ratio at the microphone closest to the estimated current location of the person, wherein the echo comprises at least some of audio outputted by the two or more audio devices, and wherein at least one of the audio processing changes for the closest audio device is different from an audio processing change for a second audio device of said at least two audio devices, and wherein the one or more types of audio processing changes cause a reduction in loudspeaker reproduction level for the closest audio device; and
causing the one or more types of audio processing changes to be applied.