Patents Examined by Davetta W. Goins
  • Patent number: 10390156
    Abstract: A tactile sound device includes a transducer to convert an electrical signal into motion. One or membranes are coupled to the transducer and are adapted to transfer vibrations from the transducer to a user's body. A first sensor monitors the vibrations of the transducer. One or more circuits generate the electrical signal based on a signal received from the first sensor that monitors the vibrations of the transducer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: SUBPAC, INC.
    Inventors: Sarosh Khwaja, James A. Kimpel, John Alexiou, Todd Chernecki, Peter R. Williams
  • Patent number: 10368167
    Abstract: An apparatus and method for controlling an audio power circuit. The audio power circuit includes an audio amplifier having a power input and a speaker connected to the audio amplifier. The audio power circuit also includes a control circuit configured to be connected to a battery and the power input and to control a supply of power to the power input. The audio power circuit further includes a thermal protection circuit connected between the audio amplifier and the speaker, the thermal protection circuit configured to generate a thermal protection signal and provide the same to the control circuit, wherein the control circuit is further configured to control the supply of power based on the thermal protection signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 28, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2019
    Assignee: MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS, INC.
    Inventors: Chen Kok Yeoh, Joo Yih See, Chin Seng Tan
  • Patent number: 10368168
    Abstract: The disclosure includes a system and method for sonically customizing an audio reproduction device. The system includes a processor and a memory storing instructions that when executed cause the system to determine an application environment associated with an audio reproduction device associated with a user; determine one or more sound profiles based on the application environment; provide the one or more sound profiles to the user; receive a selection of a first sound profile from the one or more sound profiles; and generate tuning data based on the first sound profile, the tuning data configured to sonically customize the audio reproduction device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 3, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2019
    Assignee: Skullcandy, Inc.
    Inventors: Tetsuro Oishi, Rex Price, Samuel Paschel, Matthew Windt, Thomas Bishop
  • Patent number: 10362422
    Abstract: A method and system dynamically adjusts the audio of an audio and video signal to improve its overall sound quality and dialog intelligibility. Some embodiments use gain, equalization, audio signal compression and spatial enhancement (reverb) on individual channels of a multichannel audio signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2019
    Inventor: Steven Jay Borne
  • Patent number: 10362403
    Abstract: An electronic device whose enclosure or housing panel is used as part of an acoustic system is described. The panel is divided into several sub-panels. For each sub-panel, the device includes one or more actuators attached to vibrate the sub-panel. The actuator and its attached sub-panel convert an audio signal to acoustic output. Each actuator and sub-panel combination may receive a separate audio signal. The device includes a digital signal processor for controlling each of the sub-panel driving audio signals. The device may further include one or more backing frames that are attached to the panel to provide boundary conditions to the sub-panels. The boundary conditions define a resonance frequency for each sub-panel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2019
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Matthew A. Donarski, Daniel K. Boothe, Justin D. Crosby, Mitchell R. Lerner
  • Patent number: 10354638
    Abstract: Certain example embodiments relate to an acoustic wall assembly that uses active and/or passive sound reverberation to achieve noise-disruptive functionality, and/or a method of making and/or using the same. With the active approach, sound waves in a given frequency range are detected by a sound masking circuit. Responsive to detection of such sound waves, an air pump (e.g., speaker) is used to pump air in the wall assembly to actively mask the detected sound waves via reverberation and/or the like. The wall assembly may include one, two, or more walls, and the walls may be partial or full walls. With the passive approach, sound waves in a given frequency range are disrupted via features (e.g., holes, slits, etc.) formed in and/or on a wall itself. These techniques may be used together or separately, in different example embodiments.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 16, 2019
    Assignee: Guardian Glass, LLC
    Inventors: Alexey Krasnov, Barry B. Corden, Ed Green
  • Patent number: 10349181
    Abstract: Provided are an actuator fixing device and a panel vibration type sound-generating display device including the same. A display device includes: a display panel configured to display an image, a cover bottom configured to cover the display panel, and a plurality of sound-generating actuators supported by the cover bottom, the sound-generating actuators being configured to vibrate the display panel to generate sound, at least two of the sound-generating actuators being adjacent to each other.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2019
    Assignee: LG Display Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Sungtae Lee, KwanHo Park, YeongRak Choi, Kwangho Kim, MyungJin Bae
  • Patent number: 10341777
    Abstract: It is disclosed a speaker module, including a module housing, a speaker assembly and a heat-dissipating member. The module housing has an inner cavity, the inner cavity includes a front cavity and a rear cavity spaced apart from the front cavity, and the front cavity is communicated with an external space. The speaker assembly is mounted in the inner cavity, the speaker assembly includes a vibration diaphragm spacing the front cavity and the rear cavity apart. The heat-dissipating member has a heat-conducting section and a heat-dissipating section, the heat-conducting section is in contact with the speaker assembly, the heat-dissipating section stretches into the front cavity. The vibration of the vibration diaphragm allows air in the front cavity to flow to increase the heat-dissipating rate of the heat-dissipating section. The heat-dissipating section may have a heat-dissipating structure for increasing a heat-dissipating area, and the heat-dissipating structure may be a heat-dissipating fin.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 8, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: GOERTEK INC.
    Inventors: Qingbin Dong, Jie He, Wuchao Wang
  • Patent number: 10338635
    Abstract: The present embodiment relates to a double-faced display device generating sound by directly vibrating a display panel and includes: a first display panel and a second display panel disposed at the front and rear surface thereof, respectively; a single sound generating actuator connected to the first display panel and the second display panel to simultaneously vibrate the first display panel and the second display panel and thus generate sound; and a support part configured to support the sound generating actuator, the first display panel, and the second display panel. The present embodiment does not require a separate speaker and thus can achieve a thin or slim display device, and can improve the localization or the quality of sound output in opposite directions in the double-faced display device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: LG Display Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: YeongRak Choi, Sungtae Lee
  • Patent number: 10341799
    Abstract: Embodiments are described for designing a filter in a magnitude domain performing an impedance filtering function over a frequency domain to compensate for directional cues for the left and right ears of the listener as a function of virtual source angles during headphone virtual sound reproduction. The filter is derived by obtaining blocked ear canal and open ear canal transfer functions for loudspeakers placed in a room, obtaining an open ear canal transfer function for a headphone placed on a listening subject, and dividing the loudspeaker transfer functions by the headphone transfer function to invert a headphone response at the entrance of the ear canal and map the ear canal function from the headphone to free field.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 28, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Sunil Bharitkar, Louis D. Fielder
  • Patent number: 10341792
    Abstract: Described are techniques for distributing audio data to multiple audio devices for generation of a synchronized audio output. A master device may receive audio data from a content server or other remote data source and store the audio data in a local cache. The master device may provide the audio data to multiple slave devices using a single multicast transmission. In some cases, the master device may also provide the audio data to individual slave devices unable to receive the multicast transmission using a network connection. Each slave device may store the audio data in a local cache. To generate the audio output, each audio device may retrieve the audio data from the associated local cache, which may enable the audio data to be distributed without modifying the commands used by audio applications to generate the audio output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventors: Shengwei Zhang, Jin Guo, Alexander Feldman, Ashish Shukla
  • Patent number: 10339942
    Abstract: The following coding scenario is addressed: A number of audio source signals need to be transmitted or stored for the purpose of mixing wave field synthesis, multi-channel surround, or stereo signals after decoding the source signals. The proposed technique offers significant coding gain when jointly coding the source signals, compared to separately coding them, even when no redundancy is present between the source signals. This is possible by considering statistical properties of the source signals, the properties of mixing techniques, and spatial hearing. The sum of the source signals is transmitted plus the statistical properties of the source signals which mostly determine the perceptually important spatial cues of the final mixed audio channels. Source signals are recovered at the receiver such that their statistical properties approximate the corresponding properties of the original source signals. Subjective evaluations indicate that high audio quality is achieved by the proposed scheme.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V.
    Inventor: Christof Faller
  • Patent number: 10334362
    Abstract: Systems and methods are described for analyzing and resolving feedback caused by having multiple audio links in a conference room. An audio system may detect the presence of duplicated audio caused by multiple audio links in the conference room. Marker signals may be injected into the conference room or over the network in response to detecting the duplicated audio. Echoes of the marker signals may be received, and the system may determine which case corresponds to the detected duplicated audio based on the received echo of the marker signals. Based on the determined case, operation of at least one of the speaker and the microphone may be modified. After the modification, audio playback in the conference room may be monitored to verify that far end audio playback is taking place and that the duplicated audio has been resolved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2019
    Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Glenn N. Dickins, Dong Shi, Andrew Border, David Gunawan
  • Patent number: 10325585
    Abstract: Ambient sound is converted into digital signals. A processor performs active noise cancellation and/or a transformation operation that is distinct from the active noise cancellation on the digital signals. The active noise cancellation and the transformation operation transform the digital signals into modified digital signals. The modified digital signals are converted into modified analog signals. The modified analog signals are outputted as audio waves. An interior microphone is configured to output an output signal to the processor in response to receiving the modified analog signals. In response to receiving the output signal from the interior microphone, the processor is configured to determine whether the modified digital signals produce desired audio waves.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 18, 2019
    Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Jeffrey Baker, Anthony Parks, Sal Gregory Garcia, Thomas Ezekiel Burgess, Matthew Fumio Yamamoto, Nils Jacob Palmborg, Noah Kraft, Richard Fritz Lanman, III, Daniel C. Wiggins
  • Patent number: 10321252
    Abstract: A method of producing a spatialized stereo audio file from an original stereo audio file comprises creating a data base of impulse responses realized in at least one physical space divided into left, right, front, back, up and down sides relative to a sound acquisition position, with at least one pair of acquisition microphones placed at the sound acquisition position, with at least two pairs of source loudspeakers placed at sound source positions; the sound acquisition position is situated at the left-right median plane of the physical space, the sound source positions are distributed symmetrically by pairs relative to the sound acquisition position, the data base of impulse responses comprising at least one left/right impulse response pair, the left and right impulse responses being obtained by a deconvolution of the direct acquired signal from all the source loudspeakers distributed at the respective left and right side of the physical space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: AXD Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Franck Vincent Rosset, Jean-Luc Haurais
  • Patent number: 10321234
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a signal processing device, a signal processing method, and a program that allows for generating an input signal suitable for a multi-way speaker. A band dividing unit divides an audio signal into signals in a plurality of bands corresponding to respective bands of a plurality of speaker units of the multi-way speaker. A filter processing unit performs wave front synthesis filter processing on each of the audio signals in the respective bands having been divided into. The audio signal in each of the bands after the wave front synthesis filter processing is supplied to the speaker unit of the corresponding band in the multi-way speaker. The present disclosure is applicable, for example, to a signal processing device or other devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Homare Kon
  • Patent number: 10321251
    Abstract: Various embodiments describe techniques for switching microphones in a multiple microphone system. The techniques incorporate sampling audio signals from multiple microphones, determining a microphone that has the greatest incoming amplitude during the analysis window, and switching the microphone to that greatest amplitude microphone. The transition point for switching microphones may be determined when either the amplitude of the incoming signal is within an error bound of zero or at a “zero-crossing” in the input amplitude stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 18, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: Republic Wireless, Inc.
    Inventor: Dean Thorson
  • Patent number: 10313822
    Abstract: An image sensor in a first earcup captures an image of a pinna. First sound is output by a transducer in a second earcup located at the pinna and respective second sound is detected by each of one or more microphones in the second earcup located at the pinna. Based on the captured image and the respective second audio sound from each of the one or more microphones, a non-linear transfer function is determined which characterizes how sound is transformed by the pinna. A signal is generated indicative of one or more audio cues for spatializing third sound based on the determined non-linear transfer function.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2019
    Assignee: EmbodyVR, Inc.
    Inventor: Kapil Jain
  • Patent number: 10304438
    Abstract: A noise-cancellation system for a headphone (HP) that comprises a speaker (200, 210) for emitting a speaker signal, a microphone (300, 310, 320, 330) for receiving a microphone signal and a proximity sensor (400, 410) for a receiving a proximity signal comprising quantitative information on the distance of the an object (OBJ) from the proximity sensor (400, 410) has a signal processing device (100). The signal processing device (100) is designed to generate a compensation signal based on the microphone signal, wherein the generation of the compensation signal comprises filtering with an adjustable filter characteristic. The compensation signal is combined with an audio signal in order to generate the speaker signal. The filter characteristic is adapted based on the distance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignee: ams AG
    Inventor: Horst Gether
  • Patent number: 10304490
    Abstract: Holographic sound is recorded and reproduced by way of a single monaural recording per left and right ear recorded. This is accomplished by determining the phase shift of frequencies recorded after dividing the sound into discrete frequencies in a recording device having resonators, each resonating at a different frequency, placed in a circular arrangement and divided into discrete channels by non-resonant material. The resonators are placed in a pseudo-randomized arrangement within the recording device and the circle of resonators is in front of a microphone which records the sound monaurally. Playback is then by way of arranging speakers or transducers into micro perforated sheets which amplify the sound, the arrangement of speakers/transducers around a central point. The sound is then played back directionally based on the position where the sound originally was recorded from and the position of the particular transducer around the central point.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 2, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignee: ACOUSTIX VR INC.
    Inventor: Gopal P. Mathur