Patents Examined by Xu Mei
  • Patent number: 11545130
    Abstract: System and method for enhancing audio reproduced by an audio reproduction device with a first channel and second channel is described. X samples of audio signals are received and stored in a portion of an input buffer with 2x positions and rest of the x positions are padded with zero for both the channels. Contents of the input buffer are transformed to frequency domain (FD) components. FD components are multiplied with a first filter coefficient to generate FD components with short echo effect and with a second filter coefficient to generate FD components with long echo effect. Then, they are converted to time domain (TD) components with short echo effect and TD components with long echo effect. Selective TD components with short echo effect and long echo effect are combined to generate a convolved first channel output and a convolved second channel output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: Scaeva Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Steven Elliott Curd, Roustam Asimov
  • Patent number: 11545126
    Abstract: Arrangements for communication and/or noise attenuation within an aircraft, and aircraft and methods for making aircraft including such arrangements are provided. In one example, an arrangement includes an array of first microphones cooperatively configured to be directed towards a first aircraft operator when disposed in a first cockpit seat to receive a first communication input from the first aircraft operator. An array of first speakers is cooperatively configured to be directed towards the first aircraft operator when disposed in the first cockpit seat to provide a first communication output to the first aircraft operator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation
    Inventors: Bethany Davis, Amy Mayo, Scott Bohanan, Jim Jordan, John Maxon, Paul Conti, Tongan Wang
  • Patent number: 11540081
    Abstract: Channels of audio data in a spatial audio object are associated with any one or more of a direction and a location of one or more recorded sounds, which channels are to be reproduced as spatial sound. A visualized spatial sound object represents a snapshot/thumbnail of the spatial sound. To preview the spatial sound (by experiencing its snapshot or thumbnail), a user manipulates the orientation of the visualized spatial sound object, and a weighted downmix of the channels is rendered for output as a spatial preview sound, e.g., a single output audio signal is provided to a spatial audio renderer; one or more of the channels that are oriented toward the user are emphasized in the preview sound, more than channels that are oriented away from the user. Other aspects are also described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2022
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Christopher T. Eubank, Matthew S. Connolly, Stephen E. Pinto
  • Patent number: 11540049
    Abstract: System and method for enhancing audio reproduced by an audio reproduction device is described. A plurality of convolution coefficients are generated for a predefined space. A digital audio signal is modified based on the generated convolved digital audio signal to generate a convolved digital audio signal. The convolved digital audio signal is converted to a convolved analog audio signal. The convolved analog audio signal is fed to the audio reproduction device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2022
    Assignee: Scaeva Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Steven Elliott Curd, Wendy Susan Curd
  • Patent number: 11533078
    Abstract: A method and circuit for providing adaptive suppression of signal crosstalk appearing on a common return wire in a signal cable connected to a device. The method steps comprise connecting an adjustable negative resistance circuit between the common wire terminal and a common point at the device; determining an auxiliary current (Iaux) such that is flowing through at least one of the cable wires and returns through the common wire; sensing the voltage between selected at least one of the cable wire terminals at the device port and the common point, while ensuring that this level is substantially affected by Iaux; measuring a level of the sensed voltage according to a predefined level measurement procedure; and adjusting the negative resistance so as to nullify said voltage level, thereby effectively cancelling the common wire ohmic resistance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 3, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2022
    Assignee: ELBIT SYSTEMS LAND AND C4I LTD.
    Inventors: Yeheskel Chechik, Jacob Vintor
  • Patent number: 11528557
    Abstract: A method for controlling an FIR filter includes generating, based on operation information, a first and second control data, generating a second amplitude characteristic, and setting filter coefficients of the FIR filter based on the second amplitude characteristic. The first control data indicates an amount of expansion/compression in a frequency axis direction of a first amplitude characteristic that corresponds to a predetermined transfer function that is expressed as a function of an angular frequency, and the amount of expansion/compression is an integer value or a non-integer value. The second control data indicates an amount of shift in the frequency axis direction of the first amplitude characteristic.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2022
    Assignee: YAMAHA CORPORATION
    Inventor: Kenji Ishizuka
  • Patent number: 11528549
    Abstract: Wireless headphones with battery life effectively extended includes first and second headphones. The first and second headphones each with respective low battery levels remaining or very different battery levels remaining receive audio signals from an electronic device and output the sound of the audio signal after adjustments are applied to volume level and to sound quality on one side or on both sides, to reduce the consumption of battery level. Each of the first and second headphones carries a processor for intercommunication in addition to communication with the electronic device performing playback.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2022
    Assignee: Nanning FuLian FuGui Precision Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Chun-Te Wu
  • Patent number: 11526326
    Abstract: An example method includes receiving data indicating a configuration of one or more playback devices. The one or more playback devices may include one or more transducers. The method further includes, based on the received data, associating each of one or more audio streams respectively with at least one transducer of the one or more transducers. The method further includes generating the one or more audio streams and sending at least one of the generated one or more audio streams to each of the one or more playback devices. An example non-transitory computer readable medium and an example computing device related to the example method are also disclosed herein.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2022
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Ted Lin, Romi Kadri
  • Patent number: 11516604
    Abstract: A system for evaluating a seal between an earphone of a hearing device and an ear canal that includes a first microphone positioned outside the ear canal, a second microphone positioned inside the ear canal, and a controller. The controller is configured to measure a sound level at one or more test frequencies using the first microphone, measure a sound level at the one or more frequencies using the second microphone, calculate a difference between the sound levels measured using the first and second microphones at each of the one or more test frequencies, and determine a measurement of an ear seal based on the calculated one or more differences.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 5, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2022
    Assignee: Cirrus Logic, Inc.
    Inventor: Aleksey S. Khenkin
  • Patent number: 11516607
    Abstract: A method for controlling the distortion generated by a system having at least one loudspeaker on board a vehicle, the loudspeaker being designed to receive an audio signal. The method includes measuring at least one indicator of the distortion of the at least one loudspeaker, determining an acceptable distortion threshold for each distortion indicator, which can be used to determine a maximum acceptable amplitude for each frequency in a frequency range of interest of the audio signal entering the loudspeaker system, generating an assembly comprising at least one filter, correcting the audio signal entering the loudspeaker system by applying at least one filter determined in the generating step.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2022
    Inventors: Daniil Sinev, Guillaume Rossi Ferrari, Ivan Bourmeyster
  • Patent number: 11503414
    Abstract: A hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, comprises a) a multitude of input units, each providing an electric input signal representing sound in the environment of the user in a time-frequency representation, wherein the sound is a mixture of speech and additive noise or other distortions, e.g. reverberation, b) a multitude of beamformer filtering units, each being configured to receive at least two, e.g. all, of said multitude of electric input signals, each of said multitude of beamformer filtering units being configured to provide a beamformed signal representative of the sound in a different one of a multitude of spatial segments, e.g. spatial cells, around the user, c) a multitude of speech probability estimators each configured to receive the beamformed signal for a particular spatial segment and to estimate a probability that said particular spatial segment contains speech at a given point in time and frequency, wherein at least one, e.g.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 15, 2022
    Assignee: OTICON A/S
    Inventor: Jesper Jensen
  • Patent number: 11496847
    Abstract: A state detection device in an audio interface includes: a first voltage detection circuit, a second voltage detection circuit and a state determination circuit. The first voltage detection circuit is coupled to a first contact and a second contact of an audio jack socket, for detecting a voltage across the first contact and the second contact to generate a first detection value. The second voltage detection circuit is coupled to a third contact of the audio jack socket, for detecting a voltage on the third contact to generate a second detection value. The state determination circuit is coupled to the first voltage detection circuit and the second voltage detection circuit, for determining a water ingress state of the audio jack socket according to the first detection value, and a connector type of an audio plug that is inserted into the audio jack socket according to the second detection value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 26, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2022
    Assignee: Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
    Inventors: Quan-Xi Yang, Cheng-Pin Chang, Chih-Kang Chien
  • Patent number: 11496848
    Abstract: To avoid damage from overheating, playback device operation can be modulated based on input from temperature sensors. An example method includes obtaining, via one or more temperature sensors carried by the playback device, temperature data. Based on the temperature data, a first temperature parameter is detected. In response to detecting the first temperature parameter, a gain of audio playback is decreased by a first amount. After decreasing the gain of audio playback by the first amount, a second temperature parameter is detected. In response to detecting the second temperature parameter, the gain of audio playback is decreased by a second amount different than the first amount.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2022
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Hilmar Lehnert, Aurelio Ramos
  • Patent number: 11489505
    Abstract: A method of equalising an audio signal derived from a microphone, the method comprising: receiving the audio signal; applying an order-statistic filter to the audio signal in the frequency domain to generate a statistically filtered audio signal; equalising the received audio signal based on the statistically filtered audio signal to generate an equalised audio signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2022
    Assignee: Cirrus Logic, Inc.
    Inventors: John P. Lesso, Craig Alexander Anderson
  • Patent number: 11490198
    Abstract: A method for detecting wind noise incident on a single microphone may include receiving an audio signal indicative of sound incident on the single microphone, dividing the audio signal into a plurality of audio frames, and determining whether wind noise is incident on the single microphone based on a combination of a correlation metric between successive audio frames of the plurality of audio frames and a power ratio difference between a first power ratio and a second power ratio. The first power ratio may equal an amount of power present in a first frequency range of the audio signal to a total amount of power present in the audio signal across all frequencies. The second power ratio may equal an amount of power present in a second frequency range of the audio signal to the total amount of power present in the audio signal across all frequencies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 26, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2022
    Assignee: Cirrus Logic, Inc.
    Inventors: Ning Li, Teja Buddha, Mohamed Sabet, Doug Olsen
  • Patent number: 11474777
    Abstract: An example system is configured to: (i) receive data indicating a command to play back, via a playback device of a media playback system, media content; (ii) based on the data indicating the command, detect a first playback condition comprising a first user identity; (iii) identify, from one or more user accounts associated with the playback device, a first user account corresponding to the first user identity; (iv) based at least on (1) the command and (2) one or more properties of the first user account, determine first media content for playback by the playback device; and (v) cause the playback device to play back the first media content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 18, 2022
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert Reimann, David Taylor, Abhishek Kumar
  • Patent number: 11474778
    Abstract: An example system is configured to: (i) receive data indicating a command to play back, via a playback device of a media playback system, media content; (ii) based on the data indicating the command, detect a first playback condition comprising a first user identity; (iii) identify, from one or more user accounts associated with the playback device, a first user account corresponding to the first user identity; (iv) based at least on (1) the command and (2) one or more properties of the first user account, determine first media content for playback by the playback device; and (v) cause the playback device to play back the first media content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 18, 2022
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert Reimann, David Taylor, Abhishek Kumar
  • Patent number: 11470436
    Abstract: An apparatus including at least one processor and at least one memory including a computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to: determine, for two or more microphone audio signals, at least one spatial audio parameter for providing spatial audio reproduction; determine at least one coherence parameter associated with a sound field based on the two or more microphone audio signals, such that another sound field is configured to be reproduced based on the at least one spatial audio parameter and the at least one coherence parameter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 11, 2022
    Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy
    Inventors: Mikko-Ville Laitinen, Juha Vilkamo
  • Patent number: 11463809
    Abstract: A wind noise suppression system may include a local wind noise suppression block, a receiver, and a wind noise suppression fusion block. The local wind noise suppression block may be configured to analyze an audio signal and generate, based on the audio signal, local wind noise information associated with a first device comprising the wind noise suppression system, wherein the local wind noise information includes parameters for suppressing local wind noise at the first device. The receiver may be configured to receive remote wind noise information associated with a second device, wherein the remote wind noise information includes parameters for suppressing remote wind noise at the second device. The wind noise suppression fusion block may be configured to combine the local wind noise information and the remote wind noise information into fused wind noise information and apply parameters of the fused wind noise information to modify audio information for playback to an audio transducer of the first device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2022
    Assignee: Cirrus Logic, Inc.
    Inventor: Justin L. Allen
  • Patent number: 11457311
    Abstract: A method for determining a displacement offset of a voice coil of a speaker, comprising: providing a drive signal comprised of a program content signal and a test signal to the voice coil of the speaker; determining at least one value representative of an impedance of the voice coil according to a voice coil voltage and a voice coil current, wherein the voice coil voltage and the voice coil current result from, at least, the test signal; determining whether the at least one value indicates that an offset displacement of the voice coil exceeds a predetermined offset distance; and reducing a magnitude of the drive signal provided to the voice coil if the at least one value indicates that the offset displacement of the voice coil exceeds the predetermined offset threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: September 27, 2022
    Assignee: Bose Corporation
    Inventor: Randy Michael Carbo