BACKGROUND

Voice assistants in homes are becoming ubiquitous. Typically, the voice assistant device includes an array of synchronous microphones whose locations relative to one another are known by design. As a result, location information of an acoustic source can be derived by calculating acoustic delays between the microphones of the array. Here, the outputs of the different microphones in the array are synchronous to one another, i.e., they are sampled using the same clock signal and the microphones are of the same type resulting in similar phase responses. These characteristics enable the device to take advantage of the spatial diversity of its microphone outputs to perform spatial processing to produce a processed output suitable for voice processing applications. Generally speaking, having more microphones in the array is directly proportional to the performance gain of a spatial processing method that will lead to improved user experience in voice applications, for example higher phrase recognition rate in speech recognition applications.

The use of a voice interface for use in automatic speech recognition in smart home applications is growing beyond voice assistants. Various devices in homes now come with microphones, e.g., smart televisions (TV), smart appliances, smart speakers, and voice assistants. With the proliferation of such devices, microphones from all these devices can be used in a collaborative manner to enhance voice response performance. For example, TV noise can be reduced by using the microphone in the TV for noise cancellation by cleaning up the noisy signal from another device located closer to the inquiring talker. However, this presents challenges.

One challenge is that the home environment may contain speech-like interference, for example from TV, as mentioned. Another challenge is that spatial cues from the distributed microphones are difficult to derive for at least two reasons. First, the distributed microphones are sampled at different clock frequencies resulting in unknown relative phase response. Second, the location of the distributed microphones is ad hoc, i.e., unknown.

SUMMARY

Embodiments are described that use voice biometric information to detect when the inhabitant (enrolled talker) of a home is speaking. The system uses speaker identification cues in order to process microphones signals that are distributed in ad hoc locations and are asynchronously sampled. Voice biometric scoring is used to perform spatial processing of the multiple, ad hoc located and asynchronously sampled microphones.

In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides a method that includes receiving multiple asynchronous audio outputs from multiple microphones distributed at ad hoc locations and performing voice biometrics scoring to generate a confidence score for each of the multiple asynchronous audio outputs. The confidence score indicates a likelihood of speech utterance of an enrolled user in the asynchronous audio output. The method also includes selecting a subset of the multiple asynchronous audio outputs based on the confidence scores and performing spatial processing of the selected subset of the multiple asynchronous audio outputs to provide processed audio output for use by a voice application.

In another embodiment, the present disclosure provides a method that includes receiving an asynchronous plurality of spatially processed audio outputs and a corresponding plurality of biometric identifiers from a corresponding plurality of devices that are distributed at ad hoc locations, synchronizing audio frames of the asynchronous plurality of spatially processed audio outputs using the plurality of biometric identifiers, and combining the synchronized audio frames to generate a coherently combined audio output for use by a voice application.

In yet another embodiment, the present disclosure provides a method that includes receiving a plurality of uttered speech associated with a respective plurality of devices that are distributed at ad hoc locations within a home. The plurality of uttered speech is recognized from a respective plurality of spatially processed outputs generated by the respective plurality of devices using biometrics of talkers enrolled by the plurality of devices. The method also includes combining the plurality of uttered speech to generate a final output of uttered speech.

In yet another embodiment, the present disclosure provides a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by processor circuitry, cause the processor circuitry to perform a method that includes receiving multiple asynchronous audio outputs from multiple microphones distributed at ad hoc locations and performing voice biometrics scoring to generate a confidence score for each of the multiple asynchronous audio outputs. The confidence score indicates a likelihood of speech utterance of an enrolled user in the asynchronous audio output. The method also includes selecting a subset of the multiple asynchronous audio outputs based on the confidence scores and performing spatial processing of the selected subset of the multiple asynchronous audio outputs to provide processed audio output for use by a voice application.

