Visually steerable sound beam forming system based on face tracking and speaker array

This paper presents a novel human-machine interface, named invisible messenger. It integrates real time visual tracking of face and sound beam forming by speaker array. Direction towards a target person can be obtained by the face tracking on real-time. By continuously updating the sound beam direction with the face tracking output, the system can keep transmitting sounds towards the target person selectively, even if he or she moves around. Thus, it realizes remote whispering effect as if an invisible messenger were standing by him. Construction of a working system and actual measurement using the system prove the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed idea.