Sensing of particular speakers for the construction of voice interface utilized in noisy environment

A human is able to exchange information smoothly using voice under different situations such as a noisy environment in a crowd and with the existence of multiple speakers. We are able to detect the position of a source sound in three‐dimensional space, extract a particular sound from mixed sounds, and recognize who is talking. By realizing this mechanism with a computer, new applications will be presented for recording a sound with high quality by reducing noise, presenting a clarified sound, and realizing microphone‐free speech recognition by extracting particular sounds. The paper will introduce real‐time detection and identification of a particular speaker in a noisy environment using a microphone array based on the location of a speaker and the individual voice characteristics. The study will be applied to develop an adaptive auditory system for a mobile robot which collaborates with a factory worker. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 162(3): 78–86, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20629