CN111741404A

CN111741404A - Sound pickup equipment, sound pickup system and sound signal acquisition method

Info

Publication number: CN111741404A
Application number: CN202010721995.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 杜艳斌; 余睿; 陈仁武
Original assignee: Alipay Hangzhou Information Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Alipay Hangzhou Information Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-07-24
Filing date: 2020-07-24
Publication date: 2020-10-02
Anticipated expiration: 2040-07-24
Also published as: CN111741404B

Abstract

The pickup equipment, the pickup system and the method for collecting the sound signals are externally connected to extend the pickup equipment, and directional pickup is realized by using a microphone array technology through arranging a microphone array, so that the pickup angle range is enlarged, the use difficulty of a user is reduced, and the use experience of the user is improved. The pickup equipment that this specification provided still is provided with a plurality of gain control devices, corresponds with a plurality of microphones in the microphone array respectively, controls the sound signal intensity that the microphone that corresponds gathered through controlling gain control device to convenience of customers adjusts the microphone that corresponds alone, and need not control the microphone through master control equipment, uses more convenient and fast, promotes user experience. The sound pickup apparatus provided by the present specification is further provided with a plurality of indicating devices respectively corresponding to the plurality of microphones in the microphone array, and a user can visually observe the state and intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone through the indicating devices.

Description

Sound pickup equipment, sound pickup system and sound signal acquisition method

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of voice collecting technologies, and in particular, to a sound pickup apparatus, a sound pickup system, and a method for collecting sound signals.

Background

Remote conference is an indispensable affair of current enterprises and public institutions, the voice quality of conversation is a core needing attention, and the quality directly influences the conference effect. Many factors in a real conference scenario can affect the voice quality of a call. Firstly, the size, shape, table and chair placement of a conference room are greatly different, the placement position of conference equipment cannot be considered for each participant, and the voice quality of the participants at a longer distance is generally lower. Generally speaking, the mass and volume of the conference equipment are large, and the conference equipment is connected with a network cable and a power line, so that the position is inconvenient to move, the conference equipment is usually placed at a position which is convenient for conference control operation, and the position is not the optimal sound pickup position of the equipment, so that the sound pickup voice quality is further reduced. Secondly, the decoration of conference rooms is generally simple, hard materials with poor sound absorption performance are often adopted, the sound is easy to generate reverberation, and especially for participants far away from conference terminals, the sound is often weak in volume and fuzzy, and the voice quality is seriously influenced. Thirdly, besides the voice of the speaker, there are other voice interferences in the conference room, including the voice of air conditioner, the noise of roads outside the window, the impact sound of table and chair, the voice of other participants, etc., which are interferences to the host, and also affect the voice quality of the call. The most direct way to improve the speech quality is to reduce the distance between the conference equipment and the participants. The external expansion pickup equipment is generally connected with the main control conference equipment through a data line, and has the characteristics of light weight, small volume, convenient moving position and the like. The directional pickup technology only picks up the sound in a specific direction, so that the interference in other directions is effectively reduced, and the voice quality is further improved. The external expansion pickup equipment in the prior art is generally only provided with a single directional microphone. In order to ensure that voice is in a microphone pickup wave beam, a speaker needs to speak at a position right in front of a microphone and opposite to the microphone, and the microphone can effectively pick up the voice; if the direction of the speaker deviates to some extent, such as rising, leaning back and lateral movement, the voice quality can be reduced, and even the microphone can not pick up sound effectively, so that the situation that the voice transcription system transcribes and loses words is caused, the user experience is influenced, and inconvenience and difficulty in use are brought to the user.

Therefore, it is desirable to provide an external expansion type sound pickup apparatus, a sound pickup system, and a method for collecting sound signals, which have a wider sound pickup range.

Disclosure of Invention

The present specification provides an external expansion type sound pickup device with a wider sound pickup range, a sound pickup system and a sound signal acquisition method.

In a first aspect, the present specification provides a pickup apparatus, the pickup apparatus is an external extension apparatus of a control host, and during operation, the external extension apparatus is in communication connection with a remote control host, and the pickup apparatus includes a housing and a microphone array, the microphone array is installed on the housing, and includes a plurality of microphones, and the microphone array is distributed in a preset array shape, and collects sound signals in a plurality of directions during operation.

In some embodiments, the pickup apparatus further includes a gain controller, installed on the housing, electrically connected to the plurality of microphones, and operatively connected to the control host to control the gain of the sound signals collected by the microphone array, so as to control the output intensity of the sound signals collected by the microphone array.

In some embodiments, the gain controller includes a plurality of gain control devices corresponding to the plurality of microphones, and each gain control device controls a gain of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone.

In some embodiments, the gain controller is operable to control the gains of the sound signals collected by the microphones in a predetermined manner.

In some embodiments, the predetermined manner linkage comprises: when the gains of the sound signals collected by part of the microphones in the plurality of microphones become large, the gains of the sound signals collected by the rest of the microphones are uniformly reduced or reduced according to a preset proportion.

In some embodiments, the integrated gain of the sound signals collected by the plurality of microphones maintains a preset value.

In some embodiments, the sound pickup apparatus further includes a plurality of indication devices installed on the housing, corresponding to the plurality of microphones, communicatively connected to the control host during operation, and displaying states of the corresponding microphones and output intensities of the collected sound signals.

In some embodiments, the plurality of indication devices are a plurality of indication lamps, the plurality of indication devices displaying the state of the corresponding microphone and the output intensity of the collected sound signal, including: changing a lighting state of the indicator light based on the state of the corresponding microphone and the output intensity of the collected sound signal, wherein the lighting state of the indicator light includes at least one of: the color of the indicator light; the intensity of the indicator light; and a lighting pattern of the indicator light.

In some embodiments, the plurality of microphones includes at least one of a single-directional microphone and a fully-directional microphone.

In some embodiments, the pickup apparatus further includes a communication interface through which the pickup apparatus is communicatively connected to the control host, the communication interface including at least one of a wireless communication interface and a wired communication interface.

In a second aspect, the present specification provides a sound pickup system, including at least one sound pickup apparatus and a control host, where each sound pickup apparatus of the at least one sound pickup apparatus includes a microphone array, includes a plurality of microphones, is distributed in a preset array shape, and collects sound signals from a plurality of directions during operation; the control host computer includes at least one treater, and during the operation with the distal end at least one pickup apparatus communication connection, receive the sound signal that at least one pickup apparatus gathered, and right the signal fusion processing is done to the sound signal, wherein, at least one pickup apparatus is the circumscribed expansion equipment of control host computer.

In some embodiments, each pickup apparatus further includes a plurality of indication devices corresponding to the plurality of microphones and communicatively connected to the control host during operation, wherein the control host controls a display state of the corresponding indication device based on a state of each of the plurality of microphones and an output intensity of the collected sound signal.

In some embodiments, each of the microphones further comprises a gain controller electrically connected to the plurality of microphones and in operative communication with the control host to send gain control data to the control host, wherein the control host controls the gain of the sound signals collected by the microphone array based on the gain control data.

In some embodiments, the gain controller includes a plurality of gain control devices corresponding to the plurality of microphones, wherein the control host controls the gain of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone based on the gain control data corresponding to the plurality of gain control devices.

In some embodiments, each of the pickup devices further includes a communication interface through which each of the pickup devices is communicatively connected to the control host, the communication interface including at least one of a wireless communication interface and a wired communication interface.

In a third aspect, the present disclosure provides a method for collecting sound signals, which is used for a control host, where the control host includes at least one processor, and the control host is in communication connection with at least one sound pickup device at a far end during operation, receives sound signals collected by the at least one sound pickup device, and performs signal processing on the sound signals, where the at least one sound pickup device is an external extension device of the control host, and each sound pickup device of the at least one sound pickup device includes a microphone array including a plurality of microphones distributed in a preset array shape, and collects sound signals in a plurality of directions during operation; the method comprises the following steps: receiving sound signals collected by the at least one sound pickup device; and performing signal fusion processing on the sound signal.

In some embodiments, each of the microphones further comprises a plurality of indication devices corresponding to the plurality of microphones and communicatively connected to the control host when operating; the method further comprises the following steps: controlling a display state of a corresponding pointing device based on the state of acquisition of each of the plurality of microphones and the output intensity of the acquired sound signal.

In some embodiments, each of the microphones further comprises a gain controller electrically connected to the plurality of microphones and communicatively connected to the control host during operation to send gain control data to the control host; the method further comprises the following steps: receiving the gain control data sent by the gain controller; and controlling a gain of the sound signal collected by the microphone array based on the gain control data.

In some embodiments, the gain controller comprises a plurality of gain control devices corresponding to the plurality of microphones, the controlling the gain of the sound signals collected by the microphone array based on the gain control data comprises: and controlling the gain of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone based on the gain control data corresponding to the plurality of gain control devices.

In some embodiments, the controlling the gain of the sound signals collected by the microphone array based on the gain control data comprises: and controlling the gains of the sound signals collected by the microphones to be linked according to a preset mode.

According to the technical scheme, the pickup equipment, the pickup system and the method for collecting the sound signals are externally connected to extend the pickup equipment, and directional pickup is achieved by the aid of the microphone array technology through the microphone array, so that the pickup angle range is enlarged, the use difficulty of a user is reduced, and the use experience of the user is improved. The sound pickup equipment that this specification provided still is provided with a plurality of gain control devices, corresponds with a plurality of microphones in the microphone array respectively, controls the gain of the sound signal that the microphone that corresponds gathered through control gain control device to control sound signal's output intensity, convenience of customers adjusts the microphone that corresponds according to the use needs, and need not control the output intensity of the sound signal of microphone through master control equipment, and it is more convenient and fast to use, promotes user experience. The sound pickup apparatus provided by the present specification is further provided with a plurality of indicating devices respectively corresponding to the plurality of microphones in the microphone array, and a user can visually observe the states of the corresponding microphones and the output intensity of the collected sound signals through the indicating devices.

Other functions of the sound pickup apparatus, the sound pickup system, and the method of sound signal collection provided in the present specification will be partially listed in the following description. The following numerical and exemplary descriptions will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of the description. The inventive aspects of the sound pickup apparatus, sound pickup system, and method of sound signal acquisition provided herein may be fully explained by the practice or use of the methods, devices, and combinations described in the detailed examples below.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments will be briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present disclosure, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art to obtain other drawings based on these drawings without creative efforts.

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram illustrating a sound pickup system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram illustrating a sound pickup apparatus provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present specification;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a sound pickup range of a sound pickup apparatus provided according to an embodiment of the present specification;

fig. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware structure of a control host according to an embodiment of the present specification; and

fig. 5 shows a flow chart of a method for sound signal acquisition provided according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

The following description is presented to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the present description, and is provided in the context of a particular application and its requirements. Various modifications to the disclosed embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments and applications without departing from the spirit and scope of the present description. Thus, the present description is not limited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the claims.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular example embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting. For example, as used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" may include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. The terms "comprises," "comprising," "includes," and/or "including," when used in this specification, are intended to specify the presence of stated integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

These and other features of the present specification, as well as the operation and function of the elements of the structure related thereto, and the combination of parts and economies of manufacture, may be particularly improved upon in view of the following description. Reference is made to the accompanying drawings, all of which form a part of this specification. It is to be expressly understood, however, that the drawings are for the purpose of illustration and description only and are not intended as a definition of the limits of the specification. It should also be understood that the drawings are not drawn to scale.

The flow diagrams used in this specification illustrate the operation of system implementations according to some embodiments of the specification. It should be clearly understood that the operations of the flow diagrams may be performed out of order. Rather, the operations may be performed in reverse order or simultaneously. In addition, one or more other operations may be added to the flowchart. One or more operations may be removed from the flowchart.

First, a part of nouns or terms appearing in the course of describing the present specification is applicable to the following explanations:

a single directional microphone for picking up only the speaker's voice; the pickup radius is small, so that the pickup can be used by a single person, the pickup needs to be placed beside the mouth when in use, the tone quality is good, and the sound which is far away can not be picked up;

the omnidirectional microphone has the advantages that the general pickup radius is large, the microphone can pick up the sound of one person alone, the sensitivity is high, and more environmental noise can be picked up probably due to the fact that the pickup radius is large.

Microphone Array (Microphone Array): physically, it means that a system in which a plurality of microphones are arranged in order, that is, composed of a certain number of acoustic sensors (generally microphones) is used to sample and process the spatial characteristics of a sound field, and because the positions of the plurality of microphones are different, the times of sound signals arriving at different microphones are different; algorithmically, a sound signal in a specific direction is enhanced by using time difference information. After the microphones are arranged according to the specified requirements, a corresponding algorithm (arrangement + algorithm) is added to solve a plurality of room acoustic problems, such as sound source positioning, dereverberation, voice enhancement, blind source separation and the like. Speech enhancement refers to the process of extracting clean speech from noisy sound signals when the sound signals are disturbed or even drowned out by various noises (including speech). The sound source positioning technology is a pre-processing technology which is very important in the fields of man-machine interaction, audio and video conferences and the like, and aims to realize tracking and subsequent voice directional pickup of a target speaker by using a microphone array to calculate the angle and the distance of the target speaker. The dereverberation technology can well perform self-adaptive estimation on the reverberation condition of a room, so that the pure signal can be well restored, and the voice audibility and the recognition effect are remarkably improved. The sound source signal extraction is to extract a target signal from a plurality of sound signals, and the sound source signal separation technology is to extract all of a plurality of mixed sounds required.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic structural diagram of a sound pickup system 001 (hereinafter, referred to as system 001) provided according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 1, the system 001 may include at least one sound pickup apparatus 100 and a control host 200. In the system 001 shown in fig. 1, 2 sound pickup apparatuses 100 are shown, distributed at both ends of the conference table. The system 001 may comprise 1 sound pickup apparatus 100, or may comprise 3 sound pickup apparatuses 100, or may even comprise a larger number, such as 4, 5, etc. The sound pickup apparatus 100 is an external expansion apparatus that controls the main body 200, and is a portable apparatus that can be freely moved. The sound pickup apparatus 100 is in communication connection with a remote control host 200 during operation. The communication connection refers to any form of connection capable of receiving information directly or indirectly. For example, the control host 200 may establish a wireless connection with the sound pickup apparatus 100 to communicate data with each other via wireless communication; the control host 200 can also be directly connected with the sound pickup apparatus 100 through a wire to transfer data with each other; the control host 200 may also establish an indirect connection with the sound pickup apparatus 100 by directly connecting a wire to other circuits, thereby enabling data to be transferred to each other.

Fig. 2 shows a schematic structural diagram of a sound pickup apparatus 100 provided according to an embodiment of the present specification. As shown in fig. 2, the sound pickup apparatus 100 may include a housing 110 and a microphone array 120. In some embodiments, pickup apparatus 100 may also include a gain controller 140. In some embodiments, the sound pickup apparatus 100 may further include a plurality of pointing devices 160. In some instances, the sound pickup apparatus 100 may also include a communication interface 170.

The housing 110 may be a mounting support member of the sound pickup apparatus 100. The microphone array 120, the gain controller 140, the plurality of pointing devices 160, and the communication interface 170 may all be mounted on the housing 110. The shape of the housing 110 shown in fig. 2 is an exemplary illustration, and the appearance, shape, and material of the housing 110 are not limited in this specification.

As shown in fig. 2, the microphone array 120 may be mounted inside the housing 110 or may be mounted on the outer surface of the housing 110. The microphone array 120 may include a plurality of microphones 122. The plurality of microphones 122 may be distributed in a predetermined array shape, and may collect sound signals in a plurality of directions during operation. The microphone 122 may be a single directional microphone or a fully directional microphone. The microphones 122 may all be single-directional microphones, may all be fully-directional microphones, or may be a combination of single-directional microphones and fully-directional microphones. The number of microphones 122 may be 2 or more than 2. For convenience of description, 3 microphones 122 are shown in fig. 2. The preset array shape can be a linear array, a circular array, a rectangular array, and the like. For convenience of description, the plurality of microphones 122 in the microphone array 120 shown in fig. 2 are distributed in a ring shape. The multiple microphones 122 may be directed to different pickup directions. The sound pickup direction may be an angular range, i.e., a sound pickup range. When a sound source is within the pick-up range of one microphone 122 of the plurality of microphones 122, the sound signal emitted or propagated by the sound source entering the current microphone 122 along the angular range is the sound signal collected by the current microphone 122. Multiple microphones 122 may pick up sound signals within different pickup ranges. The combination of multiple microphones 122 may cover a wider pickup range. The microphone array 120 may pick up sound in a different sound pickup range depending on the array shape of the plurality of microphones 122.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a sound pickup range of the sound pickup apparatus 100 provided according to the embodiment of the present specification. The sound pickup apparatus 100 as shown in fig. 3 may include 3 microphones 122. Each microphone 122 corresponds to a sound pickup area. For ease of illustration, we label the 3 microphones 122 as 122-1, 122-2, and 122-3, respectively. The pickup areas corresponding to the 3 microphones 122 are labeled 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The sound pickup apparatus 100 shown in fig. 3 can pick up sound signals in a range of 360 degrees. The pickup range of the microphone array 120 covers a wide space, and participants do not need to spend effort to find the position of the microphone 122, so that the voice quality of nearby participants is improved. Of course, the sound pickup range of the microphone array 120 may be set according to different use requirements.

As shown in fig. 2, the gain controller 140 may include a plurality of gain control devices 142. The number of the plurality of gain control devices 142 is the same as the number of the microphones 122, and corresponds to the plurality of microphones 122 one to one. The plurality of gain control devices 142 may be in communication with the control host 200 during operation, and transmit gain control data to the control host 200 to control the gain of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122, so as to control the output intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122. The output intensity of the sound signal collected by the microphone 122 may be the product of the input intensity of the sound signal collected by the microphone 122 and the gain of the sound signal collected by the microphone 122. The participant can control the output intensity of the sound signal by pressing the gain control device 142 to increase or decrease the gain of the sound signal collected within the sound collection range of the microphone 122 corresponding to the gain control device, thereby realizing the individual control of the microphone. The gain control device 142 may be a mechanical button or a touch button. Each gain control device 142 may include two buttons, one being an increase button and the other being a decrease button. Each gain control device 142 may also include a button that controls the direction in which the button is moved to increase or decrease. The participant can turn off the current microphone 122 by depressing the gain control device 142 to weaken the output intensity of the sound signal collected within the sound collection range of the corresponding microphone 122. The participant may also turn on or off the corresponding microphone 122 by pressing the gain control device 142 differently. For example, the participant may turn microphone 122 on or off by long pressing or double clicking.

In some embodiments, the gain controller 140 may be operative to control the gains of the sound signals collected by the microphones 122 to be coupled in a predetermined manner. The preset mode linkage may be that when the gains of the sound signals collected by some of the microphones 122 become larger, the gains of the sound signals collected by the other microphones are uniformly reduced or reduced according to a preset ratio. Wherein, the integrated gain of the sound signals collected by the plurality of microphones 122 can be kept at a preset value. For example, the sum of the gains of the sound signals collected by the plurality of microphones 122 is not changed.

As shown in fig. 2, the sound pickup apparatus 100 may further include a plurality of pointing devices 160. The number of the plurality of pointing devices 160 is the same as the number of the microphones 122, and corresponds to the plurality of microphones 122 one-to-one. The plurality of pointing devices 160 may be in communication with the control host 200 during operation, and display the state of the corresponding microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signal.

The indication device 160 may be a visual indication signal or an audible indication signal. For example, the plurality of indicator devices 160 may be a plurality of indicator lights. The plurality of indicator lights may change the display state based on the state and intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122. For example, the plurality of indicator lights may change the lighting state of the indicator lights based on the state and intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122. The light emitting state of the indicator light may include a color of the indicator light; the intensity of the indicator light; and a lighting pattern of the indicator light. For example, the participant can determine whether the sound is picked up by observing the color of the indicator light or whether the indicator light is turned on to determine whether the microphone 122 corresponding thereto is in the off state or the on state. The participant can also judge the output intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122 by observing the light-emitting intensity of the indicator light, so as to adjust the output intensity of the sound signal of the corresponding microphone 122.

As another example, the pointing device 160 may be a display screen. The state of the microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signal corresponding thereto may be displayed on the display screen. The display screen can be displayed by characters or symbols.

For another example, the indication device 160 may be a speaker, which emits different voice prompts or different signal tone prompts to indicate the state of the corresponding microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signal. For example, the speaker may issue a voice prompt such as "microphone X is turned on" or "microphone X signal is strong" or even an audio signal prompt such as "droplet" or "droplet" according to the state of the corresponding microphone 122 and the output strength of the collected audio signal.

As shown in fig. 2, the sound pickup apparatus 100 may include a communication interface 170. The sound pickup apparatus 100 may be communicatively connected to the control host 200 through the communication interface 170. The communication interface 170 may be a wireless communication interface, a wired communication interface, or both a wireless communication interface and a wired communication interface. The wireless communication interface may be at least one of a bluetooth module, a WiFi module, and an NFC module. The wired communication interface may be at least one of a USB interface, a TypeC interface, and a UART interface.

When the sound pickup equipment 100 operates, the plurality of microphones 122 in the microphone array 120 can be used for respectively collecting sound signals in different sound pickup ranges, so that the sound pickup range coverage of the microphone array 120 is wider, the application range of the sound pickup equipment 100 is wider, the practicability is stronger, and the user experience is better; the sound pickup device 100 is an external expansion device of the control host 200, is a portable mobile device, and can freely move according to the requirements of participants during the use process, so that the sound pickup device is more convenient and comfortable to use. The sound pickup apparatus 100 may transmit the sound signals collected by the plurality of microphones 122 to the control host 200 through the communication interface 170 for signal processing; the control host 200 may control the plurality of pointing devices 160 according to the state of each microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signal, and control the display states of the plurality of pointing devices 160, so that the participant can determine the state of the microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signal corresponding to the display states of the plurality of pointing devices 160 by observing the display states of the plurality of pointing devices 160; meanwhile, the participant can increase or decrease the output intensity of the sound signal of the microphone 122 by the gain of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122 through the plurality of gain control devices 142; furthermore, the participant can determine the state of the corresponding microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signal through the display states of the plurality of indication devices 160, so as to adjust the output intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122, and transmit the adjustment operation to the control host 200, and the control host 200 performs enhancement or attenuation processing on the intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122 according to the operation of the participant on the gain control device 142. The sound pickup device 100 can convert the state of the microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signal into a visual or audible mode, so that the participant can be intuitively helped to control and adjust the sound pickup device 100, and the user experience is improved.

The sound pickup apparatus 100 may enable individual control of each microphone 122. Multiple microphones 122 may be turned on at the same time, i.e., allowing multiple participants to speak at the same time; the plurality of microphones 122 may also be turned on individually. The participant may individually control the plurality of microphones 122 via the plurality of gain control devices 142. For example, in some scenarios, the participant may need to discuss some problems privately, and not want to be received by the remote device, the participant may operate the corresponding gain control device 142 to enable the sound signal collected by the microphone 122 corresponding to the current participant to be cancelled, or the participant may enable the sound signals collected by the other microphones 122 to be amplified separately, so as to weaken the sound signal of the corresponding microphone 122. Sometimes, the speaking sound of the participant is small, the participant of the remote device may not be able to hear clearly, the participant can adjust the intensity of the sound signal by observing the display state of the indicating device 160, and the participant does not need to interrupt the conference issue to remind the participant to increase the volume, so that the user experience is improved.

The sound pickup apparatus 100 can also realize linkage control of the plurality of microphones 122, and realize gain control of the plurality of microphones 122 by controlling gains of the microphones 122, so that the control is simpler and more intelligent.

The control host 200 may store data or instructions for performing the method of sound signal collection described herein and may execute or be used to execute the data and/or instructions. The control host 200 may be in communication connection with at least one sound pickup apparatus 100, and in operation, receives sound signals collected by at least one sound pickup apparatus 100 and performs signal processing on the sound signals. In some embodiments, at least one microphone may also be integrated on the control host 200 for collecting sound signals. Specifically, the control host 200 may receive multiple sound signals collected by at least one sound pickup apparatus 100, and perform sound signal enhancement processing on the multiple sound signals. That is, the control host 200 may perform echo cancellation and dereverberation processing on each channel of signal, and perform processing such as beam forming, sound source localization, noise cancellation, dynamic gain adjustment, and frequency response adjustment. The control host 200 may also output the multi-channel sound signal after fusing with the sound signal collected by the control host 200. The control host 200 may also control the intensity of the multi-channel audio signal according to the plurality of gain control devices 142 and the plurality of indication devices 160. The control host 200 may receive the operation of the participant on the gain control device 142 of at least one sound pickup apparatus 100, and adjust the intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122 according to the operation. The control host 200 may automatically detect the intensity and quality of the sound signal in the beam direction corresponding to each microphone 122, and then control the display state of the indication device 160, such as color, brightness, and blinking, according to the intensity and quality of the sound signal. The participant can judge the intensity and quality of the sound signal according to the display state of the pointing device 160.

In some embodiments, the control host 200 may further include an image capturing device for capturing images. The image acquisition device and the control host 200 may be integrated into an integrated device or a split device. The control host 200 may be the same device, may be different devices, may be a single device, or may be a system composed of a plurality of devices. The control host 200 may be any electronic device having a control function. For example, the control host 200 may be an intelligent control host running an operation system such as Android, iOS, and the like, such as an intelligent set-top box in the related art, which is not limited in this specification. In some embodiments, the control master 200 may also be the master of the conferencing system.

Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a hardware configuration of a control host. The control host 200 may perform the method of sound signal collection described in this specification. The method of sound signal acquisition is described elsewhere in this specification. For example, the method P200 of sound signal acquisition is introduced in the description of fig. 5.

As shown in fig. 4, the control host 200 may include at least one storage medium 230 and at least one processor 220. In some embodiments, the control host 200 may also include a communication port 250 and an internal communication bus 210.

Internal communication bus 210 may connect various system components including storage medium 230 and processor 220.

Storage medium 230 may include a data storage device. The data storage device may be a non-transitory storage medium or a transitory storage medium. For example, the data storage device may include one or more of a magnetic disk 232, a read only memory medium (ROM) 234, or a random access memory medium (RAM) 236. The storage medium 230 further includes at least one set of instructions stored in the data storage device. The instructions are computer program code that may include programs, routines, objects, components, data structures, procedures, modules, etc. that perform the methods of sound signal collection provided herein.

The communication port 250 is used for controlling data communication between the host 200 and the outside. The communication port 250 may be a wireless communication port or a wired communication port. For example, the control host 200 may be connected to the sound pickup apparatus 100 through the wireless communication port to perform wireless communication, thereby performing data transmission with the sound pickup apparatus 100. The wireless communication port may be a WiFi port, a bluetooth port, an NFC port, or the like. For another example, the control host 200 may establish a wired connection with the sound pickup apparatus 100 through the wired communication port. The wired communication port may be a USB interface, a TypeC interface, and a UART interface, among others. The control host 200 may also be connected to one or more cameras via a communication port 250. The camera is used for image acquisition. When a plurality of cameras exist, the control host 200 may select a captured image of one camera from the plurality of cameras to perform conference playing, for example, the control host 200 may select an image captured by a camera capable of capturing a front image of a subject according to a real-time posture of the subject to be photographed, so as to be applied to conference playing, and when the posture of the subject is changed, the control host 200 may switch to an optimal camera in real time to perform image capturing and apply to conference playing.

The at least one processor 220 is communicatively coupled to at least one storage medium 230 via an internal communication bus 210. The at least one processor 220 is configured to execute the at least one instruction set. When the system 001 is operating, the at least one processor 220 reads the at least one instruction set and performs the method P200 of sound signal acquisition provided herein according to the instructions of the at least one instruction set. The processor 220 may perform all the steps involved in the method P200 of sound signal acquisition. Processor 220 may be in the form of one or more processors, and in some embodiments, processor 220 may include one or more hardware processors, such as microcontrollers, microprocessors, Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC), Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), application specific instruction set processors (ASIPs), Central Processing Units (CPUs), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), Physical Processing Units (PPUs), microcontroller units, Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Advanced RISC Machines (ARM), Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), any circuit or processor capable of executing one or more functions, or the like, or any combination thereof. For illustrative purposes only, only one processor 220 is depicted in the control host 200 in this description. However, it should be noted that the control host 200 may also include multiple processors, and thus, the operations and/or method steps disclosed in this specification may be performed by one processor as described in this specification, or may be performed by a combination of multiple processors. For example, if the processor 220 of the control host 200 performs steps a and B in this specification, it should be understood that steps a and B may also be performed by two different processors 220 in combination or separately (e.g., a first processor performs step a, a second processor performs step B, or both a first and second processor perform steps a and B together).

Fig. 5 shows a flow chart of a method P200 of sound signal acquisition. As described above, the control host 200 may execute the method P200 for collecting a sound signal provided in this specification. Specifically, the processor 220 in the control host 200 may read an instruction set stored in its local storage medium, and then execute the method P200 for sound signal collection provided in this specification according to the specification of the instruction set. The method P200 may comprise performing, by the at least one processor 220 of the controlling host 200, the following steps:

s220: sound signals collected by at least one sound pickup apparatus 100 are received.

S240: and performing signal fusion processing on the sound signal.

As described above, the control host 200 may be communicatively connected to at least one sound pickup apparatus 100. The control host 200 may acquire and process multiple sound signals collected by at least one sound pickup apparatus 100. For example, the control host 200 may perform sound signal enhancement processing on the multiple sound signals. That is, the control host 200 may perform echo cancellation and dereverberation processing on each channel of signal, and perform processing such as beam forming, sound source localization, noise cancellation, dynamic gain adjustment, and frequency response adjustment. The control host 200 can also perform fusion processing on the multiple paths of sound signals and the sound signals collected by the control host 200. For example, when there are overlapped sound signals in the multiple sound signals and the sound signal collected by the control host 200, the control host 200 may perform fusion processing on the overlapped sound signals, for example, perform weakening processing on one of the overlapped sound signals with weak signal strength, and perform enhancement processing on one of the sound signals with strong signal strength.

S260: the display state of the corresponding pointing device 160 is controlled based on the state acquired by each of the plurality of microphones 122 and the output intensity of the sound signal.

As previously described, the sound pickup apparatus 100 may include a plurality of pointing devices 160, respectively corresponding to the plurality of microphones 122. The control host 200 can control the display state of the corresponding indicating device 160 according to the output intensity of the sound signal collected by each microphone 122, so that the participant can visually observe the state of the corresponding microphone 122 and the output intensity of the sound signal. As previously mentioned, the indicator device 160 may indicate a light. The display status may be the color, brightness, and blinking status of the indicator lights, and so on.

S280: the gain control data transmitted by the gain controller 140 is received.

S290: the gain of the sound signal collected by the microphone array 120 is controlled based on the gain control data.

As described above, the participants can adjust the gain of the voice signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122 by operating the plurality of gain control devices 142 on the sound collecting apparatus 100. Specifically, the control host 200 may obtain operation data of the participant on each gain control device 142 in the plurality of gain control devices 142, that is, the gain control data, and control the gain of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122 according to the operation data, that is, perform enhancement or attenuation processing on the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122.

In some embodiments, the control host 200 may also make the gains of the sound signals collected by all the microphones 122 linked in a preset manner according to the gain control data of some of the gain control devices 142 in the gain controller 140. The preset mode linkage may be that when the gains of the sound signals collected by some of the microphones 122 become larger, the gains of the sound signals collected by the other microphones are reduced uniformly or according to a preset ratio. Wherein, the integrated gain of the sound signals collected by the plurality of microphones 122 can be kept at a preset value. For example, the sum of the gains of the sound signals collected by the plurality of microphones 122 is not changed.

To sum up, the sound pickup apparatus 100 provided in the present specification can respectively collect sound signals in different sound pickup ranges through the plurality of microphones 122 in the microphone array 120, so that the sound pickup range of the microphone array 120 is covered more widely, the application range of the sound pickup apparatus 100 is wider, the practicability is stronger, and the user experience is better; the sound pickup system 001 and the method P200 for collecting sound signals can control the display states of the plurality of indication devices 160 by controlling the host 200 according to the state of each microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signals, and a participant can judge the state of the corresponding microphone 122 and the output intensity of the collected sound signals by observing the display states of the plurality of indication devices 160; meanwhile, the participant may operate the plurality of gain control devices 142, and the control host 200 may enhance or reduce the intensity of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone 122 according to the operation data of the participant on the plurality of gain control devices 142. The sound pickup apparatus 100, the sound pickup system 001 and the sound signal collecting method P200 can convert the state of the microphone 122 and the strength of the collected sound signal into a visual or audible manner, thereby more intuitively helping the participant to control and adjust the sound pickup apparatus 100 and improving the user experience.

Another aspect of the present description provides a non-transitory storage medium storing at least one set of executable instructions for sound signal acquisition. When executed by a processor, the executable instructions direct the processor to perform the steps of the method of sound signal acquisition P200 described herein. In some possible implementations, various aspects of the description may also be implemented in the form of a program product including program code. When the program product is run on the control host 200, the program code is configured to cause the control host 200 to perform the steps of sound signal acquisition described herein. A program product for implementing the above method may employ a portable compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM) including program code and may be run on the control host 200. However, the program product of the present specification is not so limited, and in this specification, a readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system (e.g., the processor 220). The program product may employ any combination of one or more readable media. The readable medium may be a readable signal medium or a readable storage medium. A readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of the readable storage medium include: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable disk, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. The computer readable storage medium may include a propagated data signal with readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated data signal may take many forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A readable storage medium may also be any readable medium that is not a readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. Program code embodied on a readable storage medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Program code for carrying out operations for this specification may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, C + + or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the control host 200, partly on the control host 200, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the control host 200 and partly on a remote computing device, or entirely on the remote computing device.

The foregoing description has been directed to specific embodiments of this disclosure. Other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims. In some cases, the actions or steps recited in the claims may be performed in a different order than in the embodiments and still achieve desirable results. In addition, the processes depicted in the accompanying figures do not necessarily require the particular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirable results. In some embodiments, multitasking and parallel processing may also be possible or may be advantageous.

In conclusion, upon reading the present detailed disclosure, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the foregoing detailed disclosure can be presented by way of example only, and not limitation. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the present specification contemplates various reasonable variations, enhancements and modifications to the embodiments, even though not explicitly described herein. Such alterations, improvements, and modifications are intended to be suggested by this specification, and are within the spirit and scope of the exemplary embodiments of this specification.

Furthermore, certain terminology has been used in this specification to describe embodiments of the specification. For example, "one embodiment," "an embodiment," and/or "some embodiments" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment can be included in at least one embodiment of the specification. Therefore, it is emphasized and should be appreciated that two or more references to "an embodiment" or "one embodiment" or "an alternative embodiment" in various portions of this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined as suitable in one or more embodiments of the specification.

It should be appreciated that in the foregoing description of embodiments of the specification, various features are grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the specification, for the purpose of aiding in the understanding of one feature. This is not to be taken as an admission that any of the features are required in combination, and it is fully possible for one skilled in the art to extract some of the features as separate embodiments when reading this specification. That is, embodiments in this specification may also be understood as an integration of a plurality of sub-embodiments. And each sub-embodiment described herein is equally applicable to less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed embodiment.

Each patent, patent application, publication of a patent application, and other material, such as articles, books, descriptions, publications, documents, articles, and the like, cited herein is hereby incorporated by reference. All matters hithertofore set forth herein except as related to any prosecution history, may be inconsistent or conflicting with this document or any prosecution history which may have a limiting effect on the broadest scope of the claims. Now or later associated with this document. For example, if there is any inconsistency or conflict in the description, definition, and/or use of terms associated with any of the included materials with respect to the terms, descriptions, definitions, and/or uses associated with this document, the terms in this document are used.

Finally, it should be understood that the embodiments of the application disclosed herein are illustrative of the principles of the embodiments of the present specification. Other modified embodiments are also within the scope of this description. Accordingly, the disclosed embodiments are to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive. Those skilled in the art may implement the applications in this specification in alternative configurations according to the embodiments in this specification. Therefore, the embodiments of the present description are not limited to the embodiments described precisely in the application.

Claims

1. A pickup equipment, for the external extension apparatus of the control host, with the far-end while running the communication connection of the control host, include:

a housing; and

and the microphone array is arranged on the shell, comprises a plurality of microphones and is distributed in a preset array shape, and sound signals in a plurality of directions are collected during operation.

2. The sound pickup device as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

and the gain controller is installed on the shell, is electrically connected with the microphones and is in communication connection with the control host machine during operation, and controls the gain of the sound signals collected by the microphone array so as to control the output intensity of the sound signals collected by the microphone array.

3. The sound pickup apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the gain controller includes a plurality of gain control devices corresponding to the plurality of microphones, each gain control device controlling a gain of a sound signal picked up by the corresponding microphone, respectively.

4. The sound pickup apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the gain controller is operable to control gains of the sound signals respectively collected by the plurality of microphones to be linked in a predetermined manner.

5. The pickup device as recited in claim 4 wherein the predetermined manner linkage comprises:

when the gains of the sound signals collected by part of the microphones in the plurality of microphones become large, the gains of the sound signals collected by the rest of the microphones are uniformly reduced or reduced according to a preset proportion.

6. The sound pickup apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein an integrated gain of sound signals picked up by the plurality of microphones is maintained at a preset value.

7. The sound pickup device as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

and the indicating devices are arranged on the shell, correspond to the microphones, are in communication connection with the control host computer during operation, and display the states of the corresponding microphones and the output intensity of the collected sound signals.

8. The sound pickup apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein the plurality of indication devices are a plurality of indication lamps, the plurality of indication devices displaying the state of the corresponding microphones and the output intensity of the collected sound signals, including:

changing a lighting state of the indicator lamp based on a state of the corresponding microphone and an output intensity of the collected sound signal,

wherein the light emitting state of the indicator light comprises at least one of the following:

the color of the indicator light;

the intensity of the indicator light; and

a lighting pattern of the indicator light.

9. The pickup device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of microphones comprises:

a unidirectional microphone; and

at least one of the fully directional microphones.

10. The sound pickup device as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

the pickup equipment is in communication connection with the control host through the communication interface, and the communication interface comprises at least one of a wireless communication interface and a wired communication interface.

11. A pickup system, comprising:

the sound pickup equipment comprises a microphone array, a microphone array and a sound pickup device, wherein the microphone array comprises a plurality of microphones which are distributed in a preset array shape and collect sound signals in a plurality of directions during operation; and

the control host comprises at least one processor, is in communication connection with the at least one sound pickup equipment at the far end during operation, receives the sound signals collected by the at least one sound pickup equipment, and performs signal fusion processing on the sound signals,

wherein, at least one pickup equipment is the external expansion equipment of main control system.

12. The pickup system of claim 11, wherein each pickup device further comprises:

a plurality of pointing devices, corresponding to the plurality of microphones, communicatively coupled to the control host when in operation,

wherein the control host controls a display state of the corresponding pointing device based on a state of each of the plurality of microphones and an output intensity of the collected sound signal.

13. The pickup system of claim 11, wherein each pickup device further comprises:

a gain controller electrically connected with the microphones and in communication connection with the control host during operation to send gain control data to the control host,

wherein the control host controls the gain of the sound signal collected by the microphone array based on the gain control data.

14. The pickup system of claim 13, wherein the gain controller comprises:

a plurality of gain control devices corresponding to the plurality of microphones,

and the control host controls the gain of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone based on the gain control data corresponding to the gain control devices.

15. The sound pickup system of claim 13, wherein the gain controller is operable to control the gain of the sound signals picked up by each of the plurality of microphones to be linked in a predetermined manner.

16. The sound pickup system of claim 15, wherein the predetermined manner linkage comprises:

17. The sound pickup system of claim 16, wherein the integrated gain of the sound signals picked up by the plurality of microphones maintains a preset value.

18. The pickup system of claim 11, wherein each pickup device further comprises:

and each pickup device is in communication connection with the control host through the communication interface, and the communication interface comprises at least one of a wireless communication interface and a wired communication interface.

19. A sound signal collecting method is used for a control host, the control host comprises at least one processor, is in communication connection with at least one sound pickup device at a far end during operation, receives sound signals collected by the at least one sound pickup device and performs signal processing on the sound signals,

the at least one pickup device is an external expansion device of the control host, each pickup device of the at least one pickup device comprises a microphone array and a plurality of microphones, the microphones are distributed in a preset array shape, and sound signals in a plurality of directions are collected during operation;

the method comprises the following steps:

receiving sound signals collected by the at least one sound pickup device; and

and performing signal fusion processing on the sound signal.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein each pickup device further comprises:

a plurality of indicating devices corresponding to the plurality of microphones and in communication connection with the control host computer during operation;

the method further comprises the following steps:

controlling a display state of a corresponding pointing device based on the state of acquisition of each of the plurality of microphones and the output intensity of the acquired sound signal.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein each pickup device further comprises:

the method further comprises the following steps:

receiving the gain control data sent by the gain controller; and

controlling a gain of a sound signal collected by the microphone array based on the gain control data.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the gain controller comprises:

the controlling the gain of the sound signals collected by the microphone array based on the gain control data comprises:

and controlling the gain of the sound signal collected by the corresponding microphone based on the gain control data corresponding to the plurality of gain control devices.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the controlling the gain of the sound signals collected by the microphone array based on the gain control data comprises:

and controlling the gains of the sound signals collected by the microphones to be linked according to a preset mode.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the pre-set manner linkage comprises:

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the integrated gain of the sound signals collected by the plurality of microphones maintains a preset value.