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EP2773131B1 - Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray - Google Patents

Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray Download PDF

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Publication number
EP2773131B1
EP2773131B1 EP13156983.2A EP13156983A EP2773131B1 EP 2773131 B1 EP2773131 B1 EP 2773131B1 EP 13156983 A EP13156983 A EP 13156983A EP 2773131 B1 EP2773131 B1 EP 2773131B1
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EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
microphones
cavities
microphone array
diameter
spherical microphone
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EP13156983.2A
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English (en)
French (fr)
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EP2773131A1 (de
Inventor
Markus Christoph
Leander Scholz
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Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH
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Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH
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    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
    • H04R1/00—Details of transducers, loudspeakers or microphones
    • H04R1/20—Arrangements for obtaining desired frequency or directional characteristics
    • H04R1/32—Arrangements for obtaining desired frequency or directional characteristics for obtaining desired directional characteristic only
    • H04R1/40—Arrangements for obtaining desired frequency or directional characteristics for obtaining desired directional characteristic only by combining a number of identical transducers
    • H04R1/406—Arrangements for obtaining desired frequency or directional characteristics for obtaining desired directional characteristic only by combining a number of identical transducers microphones
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
    • H04R2201/00—Details of transducers, loudspeakers or microphones covered by H04R1/00 but not provided for in any of its subgroups
    • H04R2201/40—Details of arrangements for obtaining desired directional characteristic by combining a number of identical transducers covered by H04R1/40 but not provided for in any of its subgroups
    • H04R2201/401—2D or 3D arrays of transducers

Definitions

  • the embodiments described herein relate to a spherical microphone array, in particular to a spherical microphone array for use in a modal beamforming system.
  • a microphone array-based modal beamforming system commonly comprises a spherical microphone array of four or more microphones equally distributed over the surface of a solid or virtual sphere for converting sounds into electrical audio signals and a modal beamformer combining the audio signals generated by the microphones to form an auditory scene representative of at least a portion of an acoustic sound field.
  • This combination enables picking up acoustic signals dependent on their direction of propagation.
  • microphone arrays are also sometimes referred to as spatial filters.
  • Spherical microphone arrays exhibit low- and high-frequency limitations, so that the soundfield can only be accurately described over a limited frequency range.
  • Low-frequency limitations essentially result when the directivity of the particular microphones of the array is poor compared to the wave-length and the high amplification, necessary in this frequency range, which leads to a high amplification of (self) noise and thus to the need to limit the usable frequency range up to a maximum lower frequency.
  • High-frequency issues can be explained by spatial aliasing effects. Similar to time aliasing, spatial aliasing occurs when a spatial function, e.g., the spherical harmonics, is under-sampled. For example, in order to distinguish 16 harmonics, at least 16 microphones are needed. In addition, the positions and, depending on the type of sphere used, the directivity of the microphones are important.
  • a spatial aliasing frequency characterizes the upper critical frequency of the frequency range, in which the spherical microphone array can be employed without generating any significant artifacts.
  • Rigid spheres which include microphones disposed in cavities are disclosed in Daniel Jerome et al: "Improving Spherical Microphone Arrays", AES Convention 124; May 2008, AES, 60 East 42nd Street, Room 2520 New York 10165-2520, USA, 1 May 2008 and US 7 840 013 B2 .
  • US 2004/114778 A1 discloses directional microphones disposed in the focal point of a parabolic surface.
  • a spherical microphone array for use in a modal beamformer system comprises a sound-diffracting structure having a closed three-dimensional shape; at least four cavities in the perimeter of the diffracting structure; and at least four microphones disposed in respective ones of the cavities, where the microphones have a membrane with a first diameter and the cavities have a depth and an opening with a rim of a second diameter to form both a spatial low-pass filter and a focusing element so that sound entering the cavities in a direction perpendicular to the perimeter of the diffracting structure at the position of the microphone is collected and transferred to the microphone with the least attenuation, whereas signals entering from other directions are attenuated by diffraction.
  • the first diameter is smaller than half of the second diameter.
  • the cavities are shaped as inverse circular paraboloids and the microphones are disposed at the focal points of the cavities shaped as paraboloids.
  • FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary array 1 of microphones 4 (herein referred to as microphone array 1) for use in a modal beamformer system 2 that further includes a beamformer unit 3 connected downstream of the microphone array 1.
  • Microphones 4 may be disposed in a regular fashion over the surface of the rigid sphere.
  • Modal beamformer 3 may include a decomposer (also known as eigenbeam former), steering unit, compensation unit, and summation unit.
  • Each microphone 4 of microphone array 1 generates an audio signal that is transmitted to modal beamformer unit 3 via some suitable (e.g., wired or wireless) connection.
  • microphone array 1 may comprise 32 microphones 4 mounted in cavities 5 arranged at the surface of an acoustic rigid sphere 6 in a "truncated icosahedron" pattern serving as a diffracting structure.
  • These five geometries which are known as regular polyhedrons or Platonic solids, consist of four, six, eight, 12, and 20 faces, respectively.
  • Another geometry that comes close to a regular division is the truncated icosahedron, which is an icosahedron with vertices cut off (thus, the term "truncated"). This results in a solid consisting of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons.
  • Other possible microphone arrangements include the center of the icosahedron faces (20 microphones) or the center of the edges of an icosahedron (30 microphones).
  • truncated icosahedron 7 is configured to carry 32 microphones and includes icosahedron 9 (Platonic solid with 20 faces) and dodecahedron 8 (Platonic solid with 12 faces).
  • the upper maximum frequency also known as spatial aliasing frequency f Alias as set forth in Equation (1), characterizes the upper critical frequency of the frequency range in which the spherical microphone array can be employed without generating any significant artifacts.
  • each microphone 4 positioned at the center of a pentagon has five neighbors at a distance of 0.65a, where a is again the radius of sphere 6.
  • Each microphone 4 positioned at the center of a hexagon has six neighbors, of which three are at a distance d Mic of 0.65a and the other three are at a distance of 0.73a.
  • Another approach to preventing the microphone from receiving the high-degree spherical harmonics is to use spatial low-pass filtering, i.e., to make the microphones less sensible to fast variations of the sound field over the surface of the sphere. This is possible if each microphone of the array is able to measure the sound field on an extended area around its angular position. This can be achieved by using larger-membrane microphones. These microphones integrate the pressure variations over their membranes, which can be seen as spatial low-pass filtering.
  • cavities 5 are shaped to form both a spatial low-pass filter and a focusing element so that sound entering the cavities from a direction perpendicular to the perimeter of the sphere is collected and transferred to the microphone(s) with the least attenuation.
  • Low-pass filtering is provided by cavity shapes whose opening areas are larger than the membrane areas of the microphones.
  • Focusing is achieved by cavity shapes that concentrate acoustic waves coming in to the cavity along an axis perpendicular to the perimeter of the sphere, at a particular point where the respective microphone is to be arranged. Waves coming in from directions other than perpendicular are reflected (diffracted) by the walls of the cavity, so they do not make their way to the microphone disposed in the cavity.
  • FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 pertain to an example which does not fall under the scope of the claims.
  • FIG. 3 shows cavity 5 shaped as an inverse spherical cap 10 with a sound reflective surface.
  • a spherical cap 11 is a portion of a sphere 12 cut off by a plane 12. If plane 13 passes through the center of sphere 12 so that the height of the cap is equal to the radius of the sphere, the spherical cap is called a dome or hemisphere.
  • the inverse cap 10 is the cavity into which cap 11 fits.
  • microphone 4 is disposed, which may be an omnidirectional microphone with a large membrane.
  • the diameter 2r o (area) of the cavity's front opening is e.g., more than two times larger than the diameter 2r m (area) of microphone 4's membrane.
  • FIG. 5 shows cavity 5 shaped as an inverse paraboloid 14, also known as a circular parabola, with a sound-reflective surface. Its shape is part of a circular paraboloid, that is, the surface generated by a parabola revolving around its axis.
  • the reflective inverse paraboloid 14 transforms an incoming plane wave traveling along the axis of the inverse paraboloid 14 into a spherical wave converging toward a focal point where microphone 4 is disposed.
  • FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of cavity 5 having an alternative inverse paraboloidal shape 16 whose depth D is larger than the diameter 2r o of the rim (D > 2r o ), in contrast to the previous examples where D ⁇ 2r o .
  • a three-dimensional view of cavity 16 of FIG. 6 is shown in FIG. 7 .

Landscapes

  • Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
  • Otolaryngology (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Circuit For Audible Band Transducer (AREA)
  • Obtaining Desirable Characteristics In Audible-Bandwidth Transducers (AREA)

Claims (6)

  1. Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray (1), umfassend:
    eine schallbeugende Struktur, die eine geschlossenen dreidimensionalen Form aufweist;
    mindestens vier Hohlräume (5) im Umfang der beugenden Struktur; und
    mindestens vier Mikrofone (4), die in den jeweiligen Hohlräumen (5) angeordnet sind, wobei
    die Mikrofone (4) eine Membran mit einem ersten Durchmesser aufweisen und die Hohlräume (5) eine Tiefe und eine Öffnung mit einem Rand mit einem zweiten Durchmesser aufweisen,
    wobei der erste Durchmesser kleiner als der zweite Durchmesser ist, um sowohl ein räumliches Tiefpassfilter als auch ein Fokussierungselement zu bilden, sodass Schall, der in die Hohlräume (5) in einer Richtung senkrecht zum Umfang der beugenden Struktur an der Position der Mikrofone (4) eintritt, gesammelt und mit der geringsten Dämpfung auf die Mikrofone (4) übertragen wird, während aus anderen Richtungen eintretende Signale durch Beugung gedämpft werden, dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass
    der erste Durchmesser kleiner als die Hälfte des zweiten Durchmessers ist,
    die Hohlräume (5) als inverse kreisförmige Paraboloide (14) geformt sind,
    und dass die Mikrofone (4) an den Brennpunkten der als Paraboloide geformten Hohlräume (5) angeordnet sind.
  2. Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray nach Anspruch 1, wobei die beugende Struktur eine starre Kugel (6) ist.
  3. Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray nach Anspruch 1 oder 2, wobei die beugende Struktur die Form eines platonischen Festkörpers oder einer Kombination von mindestens zwei platonischen Festkörpern beinhaltet.
  4. Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray nach Anspruch 3, wobei die beugende Struktur die Form eines Ikosaeders (8), eines Dodekaeders (9) oder einer Kombination davon beinhaltet.
  5. Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray nach einem der Ansprüche 1 bis 4, wobei die Mikrofone (4) omnidirektionale Mikrofone sind.
  6. Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray nach einem der Ansprüche 1 bis 5, wobei die Wände der Hohlräume (5) so konfiguriert sind, dass sie den Schall reflektieren.
EP13156983.2A 2013-02-27 2013-02-27 Kugelförmiges Mikrofonarray Active EP2773131B1 (de)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
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EP2773131B1 true EP2773131B1 (de) 2020-04-01

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US10291597B2 (en) 2014-08-14 2019-05-14 Cisco Technology, Inc. Sharing resources across multiple devices in online meetings
EP3001697B1 (de) * 2014-09-26 2020-07-01 Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH Tonaufnahmesystem
EP3007461B1 (de) * 2014-10-10 2019-02-27 Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH Mikrofonanordnung
US10542126B2 (en) 2014-12-22 2020-01-21 Cisco Technology, Inc. Offline virtual participation in an online conference meeting
US9948786B2 (en) 2015-04-17 2018-04-17 Cisco Technology, Inc. Handling conferences using highly-distributed agents
CA3013874A1 (en) 2016-02-09 2017-08-17 Zylia Spolka Z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnoscia Microphone probe, method, system and computer program product for audio signals processing
US10592867B2 (en) 2016-11-11 2020-03-17 Cisco Technology, Inc. In-meeting graphical user interface display using calendar information and system
US10516707B2 (en) 2016-12-15 2019-12-24 Cisco Technology, Inc. Initiating a conferencing meeting using a conference room device
US10440073B2 (en) 2017-04-11 2019-10-08 Cisco Technology, Inc. User interface for proximity based teleconference transfer
US10375125B2 (en) 2017-04-27 2019-08-06 Cisco Technology, Inc. Automatically joining devices to a video conference
US10375474B2 (en) 2017-06-12 2019-08-06 Cisco Technology, Inc. Hybrid horn microphone
US10477148B2 (en) 2017-06-23 2019-11-12 Cisco Technology, Inc. Speaker anticipation
US10516709B2 (en) 2017-06-29 2019-12-24 Cisco Technology, Inc. Files automatically shared at conference initiation
US10706391B2 (en) 2017-07-13 2020-07-07 Cisco Technology, Inc. Protecting scheduled meeting in physical room
US10091348B1 (en) 2017-07-25 2018-10-02 Cisco Technology, Inc. Predictive model for voice/video over IP calls
US12253391B2 (en) 2018-05-24 2025-03-18 The Research Foundation For The State University Of New York Multielectrode capacitive sensor without pull-in risk
US11510000B2 (en) 2018-08-08 2022-11-22 Nippon Telegraph And Telephone Corporation Sound collection apparatus

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US20040114778A1 (en) * 2002-12-11 2004-06-17 Gobeli Garth W. Miniature directional microphone
GB0315426D0 (en) 2003-07-01 2003-08-06 Mitel Networks Corp Microphone array with physical beamforming using omnidirectional microphones

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