Patents Examined by Douglas J Suthers
  • Patent number: 11962995
    Abstract: Disclosed in the invention is a virtual reproduction method for a multichannel spatial surround sound in three-dimensional space. Multichannel spatial surround sound signals are undergone a sum and difference operation and processed with virtual reproduction signal processing functions, then fed to four actual loudspeakers arranged at left-front-up and right-front-up directions on a high elevation plane of 30°±10° and horizontal left-front and right-front directions for reproduction, and generate a auditory effect of spatial surround sound. The invention simplifies the number and arrangement of loudspeakers required for multichannel spatial surround sound reproduction, and is suitable for cases in which the arrangement of multiple loudspeakers for spatial surround sound is infeasible, such as in a TV set, and so on.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 16, 2024
    Assignees: SOUTH CHINA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, GUANGZHOU UNIVERSITY
    Inventors: Bosun Xie, Chengyun Zhang, Lulu Liu
  • Patent number: 11956624
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for visualizing sound coverage in a venue. An embodiment operates by receiving audio content from an audio source, determining audio signal properties of the audio content, where the audio signal properties comprise one or more spectral, temporal, spatial components (e.g., energy, spectrum or directivity), receiving an audio system configuration of loudspeakers or sound beams of a venue, visualizing the audio signal based on a mapping of an intersection of a unique volumetric beam of colored light, representing the spectral, temporal, spatial components, with a portion of the venue and displaying the visualized audio signal as a virtual representation of sound coverage of the portion of the venue.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2022
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2024
    Assignee: MSG Entertainment Group, LLC
    Inventors: Yuan-Yi Fan, Neil Andrew Wakefield
  • Patent number: 11956623
    Abstract: Processing sound in an enhanced reality environment can include generating, based on an image of a physical environment, an acoustic model of the physical environment. Audio signals captured by a microphone array, can capture a sound in the physical environment. Based on these audio signals, one or more measured acoustic parameters of the physical environment can be generated. A target audio signal can be processed using the model of the physical environment and the measured acoustic parameters, resulting in a plurality of output audio channels having a virtual sound source with a virtual location. The output audio channels can be used to drive a plurality of speakers. Other aspects are also described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2024
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Christopher T. Eubank, Joshua D. Atkins, Soenke Pelzer, Dirk Schroeder
  • Patent number: 11950082
    Abstract: An apparatus and method of loudspeaker equalization. The method combines default tunings (generated based on a default listening environment) and room tunings (generated based on an end user listening environment) to result in combined tunings that account for differences between the end user listening environment and the default listening environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2024
    Assignee: DOLBY LABORATORIES LICENSING CORPORATION
    Inventor: Andrew P. Reilly
  • Patent number: 11948545
    Abstract: A sound control device in a vehicle and control method thereof may include obtaining energy per unit time of an audio signal corresponding to a preset low frequency band, calculating an allowable reference value based on a difference between a magnitude of energy per unit time of the audio signal and a magnitude of a preset maximum allowable input of a speaker, monitoring whether a magnitude of energy per unit time of a noise control signal for eliminating noise in the vehicle exceeds the allowable reference value, and adjusting a magnitude of the noise control signal when the magnitude of energy per unit time of the noise control signal exceeds the allowable reference value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2022
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2024
    Assignees: HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, KIA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jung Keun You, Jong Won Lee, Kaang Dok Yee, Chi Sung Oh, Hyun Jin Song
  • Patent number: 11943581
    Abstract: In general, techniques are described by which to enable a transparency mode in vehicles. A device comprising one or more microphones and one or more processors may be configured to perform the techniques. The microphones may capture audio data representative of a sound scene external to a vehicle. The processors may perform beamforming with respect to the audio data to obtain object audio data representative of an audio object in the sound scene external to the vehicle. The processors may next reproduce, by interfacing with one or more speakers included within the vehicle and based on the object audio data, the audio object in the sound scene external to the vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2024
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Dongeek Shin, Jian Guo
  • Patent number: 11926265
    Abstract: An all-terrain or utility vehicle includes an audio system having at least one speaker. The at least one speaker is positioned at a forward portion of the operator area and is supported by a body panel. More particularly, the body panel may be configured to receive at least a portion of the speaker as well as at least a portion of an upper frame assembly. In this way, the speaker is positioned to direct sound towards the rider, is generally concealed from a front view of the vehicle, and is positioned within available space on the vehicle above at least a portion of the door.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 12, 2024
    Assignee: Polaris Industries Inc.
    Inventors: Donovan L. Fredrickson, Jonathan M. Hetland, Keith A. Hollman
  • Patent number: 11922916
    Abstract: A signal e(z) obtained by subtracting echo-canceling sound from an output of a second microphone is used as an error of an echo cancellation adaptive filter and a noise cancellation adaptive filter, and an output of a first sound source device is added to the signal e(z) and output from a first speaker. The echo cancellation adaptive filter generates echo-canceling sound from an addition signal of the output of the second sound source device and the output of the first microphone such that the signal e(z) is minimized. The noise cancellation adaptive filter generates the noise-canceling sound from the output of the first sound source device such that the signal e(z) is minimized, and outputs the noise-canceling sound from the second speaker.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2024
    Assignee: Alps Alpine Co., LTD.
    Inventor: Ryosuke Tachi
  • Patent number: 11922918
    Abstract: A noise controlling method includes generating a reference signal representing a primary noise, generating a secondary noise in response to a control signal for cancelling the primary noise, generating an error signal representing a superposition of the primary and secondary noises at a position, generating an additional reference signal, secondary noise, or additional error signal, and generating the control signal for generating the secondary noise using adaptive subband filtering based on the reference and error signals, the generating the control signal including decomposing the reference signal and the error signal into a subband reference and error signal for each subband, updating subband adaptive filters for a subband based on the subband reference signal and the subband error signal, updating a fullband adaptive filter based on the updated subband adaptive filter, and generating the control signal by filtering the reference signal by the updated fullband adaptive filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2024
    Assignee: Faurecia Creo AB
    Inventors: Nicolas Jean Pignier Delafontaine, Christophe Mattei, Robert Risberg
  • Patent number: 11910181
    Abstract: Example techniques relate to playback based on acoustic signals in a system including a first network device and a second network device. A first network device may detect a presence of a user using a camera and/or infrared sensors. The first network device sends, in response to detecting the presence of the user, a particular signal via the first network interface. The second network device receives data corresponding to the particular signal and plays back an audio output corresponding to the particular signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2023
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2024
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc
    Inventors: Jonathon Reilly, Niels Van Erven
  • Patent number: 11910141
    Abstract: A speaker system is disclosed with user-selectable output modes including controlled directivity output modes (e.g. selectable monopole, dipole, or cardioid radiation patterns), that may be implemented with adjustable electronic delay of out-of-phase driver elements, and that provides for both even-orderharmonic distortion reduction and driver force cancellation in a compact assembly suitable for home or studio use.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 8, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2024
    Assignee: Lamassu LLC
    Inventor: Andrew Brandt Kwiram
  • Patent number: 11889290
    Abstract: Example techniques relate to playback based on acoustic signals in a system including a first network device and a second network device. A first network device may detect a presence of a user using a camera and/or infrared sensors. The first network device sends, in response to detecting the presence of the user, a particular signal via the first network interface. The second network device receives data corresponding to the particular signal and plays back an audio output corresponding to the particular signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2023
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2024
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathon Reilly, Niels Van Erven
  • Patent number: 11887611
    Abstract: In multichannel audio coding, an improved coding efficiency is achieved by the following measure: the noise filling of zero-quantized scale factor bands is performed using noise filling sources other than artificially generated noise or spectral replica. In particular, the coding efficiency in multichannel audio coding may be rendered more efficient by performing the noise filling based on noise generated using spectral lines from a previous frame of, or a different channel of the current frame of, the multichannel audio signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 27, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2024
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Maria Luis Valero, Christian Helmrich, Johannes Hilpert
  • Patent number: 11854524
    Abstract: Adjustment of active noise cancellation (ANC) systems can include determining a noise within a vehicle; detecting a movement of a head of a listener; adjusting one or more parameters of the ANC system based at least on the noise and the movement of the head of the listener; determining an anti-noise based at least on the adjusted one or more parameters; and outputting the anti-noise.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 13, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2023
    Assignee: Harman International Industries, Incorporated
    Inventor: Kevin J. Bastyr
  • Patent number: 11849299
    Abstract: Example techniques relate to playback based on acoustic signals in a system including a first network device and a second network device. A first network device may detect a presence of a user using a camera and/or infrared sensors. The first network device sends, in response to detecting the presence of the user, a particular signal via the first network interface. The second network device receives data corresponding to the particular signal and plays back an audio output corresponding to the particular signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2023
    Date of Patent: December 19, 2023
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathon Reilly, Niels Van Erven
  • Patent number: 11842716
    Abstract: A global active noise control method for a rotorcraft, including: acquiring the acoustic pressure signal at a measuring point of the rotorcraft; predicting the holographic and global sound field of noise of the rotor; reconstructing the reverse sound field of the noise of the rotor; and performing adaptive sound field adjustment based on the optimal phase search.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 12, 2023
    Assignee: NANJING UNIVERSITY OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONUATICS
    Inventors: Yang Lu, Xice Xu, Mengxue Shao, Jinru Chen
  • Patent number: 11831812
    Abstract: This disclosure describes a conferencing device with beamforming and echo cancellation that includes: a microphone array that further comprises a plurality of microphones oriented to develop a corresponding plurality of microphone signals; a processor configured to execute the following steps: (1) performing a beamforming operation to combine the plurality of microphone signals from the microphone array into a plurality of combined signals, (2) performing an acoustic echo cancellation operation on the plurality of combined signals to generate a plurality of combined echo cancelled signals, (3) receiving with a voice activity detector the far end signal as an input, (4) selecting one or more of the combined echo cancelled signals for transmission to the far end where a signal selector uses the far end signal as information to inhibit the signal selector from changing the selection of the combined echo cancelled signals while only the far end signal is active.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2022
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2023
    Assignee: ClearOne, Inc.
    Inventors: Ashutosh Pandey, Darrin T. Thurston, David K. Lambert, Tracy A. Bathurst
  • Patent number: 11822367
    Abstract: A method performed by an audio system comprising a headset. The method sends a playback signal containing user-desired audio content to drive a speaker of the headset that is being worn by a user, receives a microphone signal from a microphone that is arranged to capture sounds within an ambient environment in which the user is located, performs a speech detection algorithm upon the microphone signal to detect speech contained therein, in response to a detection of speech, determines that the user intends to engage in a conversation with a person who is located within the ambient environment, and, in response to determining that the user intends to engage in the conversation, adjusts the playback signal based on the user-desired audio content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 17, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Christopher T. Eubank, Devin W. Chalmers, Kirill Kalinichev, Rahul Nair, Thomas G. Salter
  • Patent number: 11823654
    Abstract: In at least one embodiment, an active noise cancellation system. The system includes a first controller, a data bus, and a second controller. The first controller receives first information from a plurality of noise sensing devices and second information from an audio system. The first controller employs a time division multiplexing scheme to generate a multiplexed stream of data including the first information and the second information. The data bus transmits the multiplexed stream of data on a single data channel. The second controller receives the multiplexed stream of data on the single data channel and separates the first information from the second information on the multiplexed stream of data to perform ANC functionality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2023
    Assignee: Harman International Industries, Incorporated
    Inventors: Tao Feng, Tingting Zhou, Yuliu Cao
  • Patent number: 11825290
    Abstract: Example techniques relate to playback based on acoustic signals in a system including a first network device and a second network device. A first network device may detect a presence of a user using a camera and/or infrared sensors. The first network device sends, in response to detecting the presence of the user, a particular signal via the first network interface. The second network device receives data corresponding to the particular signal and plays back an audio output corresponding to the particular signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 27, 2023
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2023
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathon Reilly, Niels Van Erven