Microphone array onboard aircraft to determine crew/passenger location and to steer a transducer beam pattern to that location

Abstract

Audio content is controllably directed to or from an aircraft occupant, such as the pilot or a passenger using a microphone array of at least two transducers, positioned onboard an aircraft to pick up utterances of the aircraft occupant. An electronically steerable transducer array coupled to an onboard an aircraft audio system, such as an avionics communication system or in-flight entertainment system supplies audio content to the aircraft occupant. A signal processor coupled to the microphone array processes utterances sensed by the transducers using a time of arrival algorithm to determine an utterance originating direction. A controller circuit then supplies a pointing direction control signal to the steerable beamforming speaker array or microphone array based on the utterance originating direction to cause the steerable transducer array to direct the audio content in the direction of the sensed utterance and thereby direct the audio content to or from the aircraft occupant.