Detection and Separation of Speech Event Using Audio and Video Information Fusion and Its Application to Robust Speech Interface

A method of detecting speech events in a multiple-sound-source condition using audio and video information is proposed. For detecting speech events, sound localization using a microphone array and human tracking by stereo vision is combined by a Bayesian network. From the inference results of the Bayesian network, information on the time and location of speech events can be known. The information on the detected speech events is then utilized in the robust speech interface. A maximum likelihood adaptive beamformer is employed as a preprocessor of the speech recognizer to separate the speech signal from environmental noise. The coefficients of the beamformer are kept updated based on the information of the speech events. The information on the speech events is also used by the speech recognizer for extracting the speech segment.