Patents by Inventor Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi

Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 11937054
    Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide a combined multi-source time difference of arrival (TDOA) tracking and voice activity detection (VAD) mechanism that is applicable for generic array geometries, e.g., a microphone array that lies on a plane. The combined multi-source TDOA tracking and VAD mechanism scans the azimuth and elevation angles of the microphone array in microphone pairs, based on which a planar locus of physically admissible TDOAs can be formed in the multi-dimensional TDOA space of multiple microphone pairs. In this way, the multi-dimensional TDOA tracking reduces the number of calculations that was usually involved in traditional TDOA by performing the TDOA search for each dimension separately.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 19, 2024
    Assignee: Synaptics Incorporated
    Inventors: Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi, Francesco Nesta
  • Patent number: 11264017
    Abstract: Systems and methods include a plurality of audio input components configured to generate a plurality of audio input signals, and a logic device configured to receive the plurality of audio input signals, determine whether the plurality of audio signals comprise target audio associated with an audio source, estimate a relative location of the audio source with respect to the plurality of audio input components based on the plurality of audio signals and a determination of whether the plurality of audio signals comprise the target audio, and process the plurality of audio signals to generate an audio output signal by enhancing the target audio based on the estimated relative location. The logic device is further configured to use relative transfer-based covariance to construct directional covariance matrix aligned across frequency bands and find a direction that minimizes beam power subject to distortionless criteria.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2022
    Assignee: SYNAPTICS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi, Francesco Nesta
  • Patent number: 11257512
    Abstract: Systems and methods include a first voice activity detector operable to detect speech in a frame of a multichannel audio input signal and output a speech determination, a constrained minimum variance adaptive filter operable to receive the multichannel audio input signal and the speech determination and minimize a signal variance at the output of the filter, thereby producing an equalized target speech signal, a mask estimator operable to receive the equalized target speech signal and the speech determination and generate a spectral-temporal mask to discriminate a target speech from noise and interference speech, and a second activity voice detector operable to detect voice in a frame of the speech discriminated signal. An audio input sensor array including a plurality of microphones, each microphone generating a channel of the multichannel audio input signal. A sub-band analysis module operable to decompose each of the channels into a plurality of frequency sub-bands.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 6, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 22, 2022
    Assignee: SYNAPTICS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Francesco Nesta, Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi
  • Publication number: 20210390952
    Abstract: Systems and methods include a plurality of audio input components configured to generate a plurality of audio input signals, and a logic device configured to receive the plurality of audio input signals, determine whether the plurality of audio signals comprise target audio associated with an audio source, estimate a relative location of the audio source with respect to the plurality of audio input components based on the plurality of audio signals and a determination of whether the plurality of audio signals comprise the target audio, and process the plurality of audio signals to generate an audio output signal by enhancing the target audio based on the estimated relative location. The logic device is further configured to use relative transfer-based covariance to construct directional covariance matrix aligned across frequency bands and find a direction that minimizes beam power subject to distortionless criteria.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 12, 2020
    Publication date: December 16, 2021
    Inventors: Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi, Francesco Nesta
  • Publication number: 20210314701
    Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide a combined multi-source time difference of arrival (TDOA) tracking and voice activity detection (VAD) mechanism that is applicable for generic array geometries, e.g., a microphone array that lies on a plane. The combined multi-source TDOA tracking and VAD mechanism scans the azimuth and elevation angles of the microphone array in microphone pairs, based on which a planar locus of physically admissible TDOAs can be formed in the multi-dimensional TDOA space of multiple microphone pairs. In this way, the multi-dimensional TDOA tracking reduces the number of calculations that was usually involved in traditional TDOA by performing the TDOA search for each dimension separately.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 16, 2021
    Publication date: October 7, 2021
    Inventors: Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi, Francesco Nesta
  • Publication number: 20210219053
    Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide a combined multi-source time difference of arrival (TDOA) tracking and voice activity detection (VAD) mechanism that is applicable for generic array geometries, e.g., a microphone array that lies on a plane. The combined multi-source TDOA tracking and VAD mechanism scans the azimuth and elevation angles of the microphone array in microphone pairs, based on which a planar locus of physically admissible TDOAs can be formed in the multi-dimensional TDOA space of multiple microphone pairs. In this way, the multi-dimensional TDOA tracking reduces the number of calculations that was usually involved in traditional TDOA by performing the TDOA search for each dimension separately.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 10, 2020
    Publication date: July 15, 2021
    Inventors: Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi, Francesco Nesta
  • Patent number: 11064294
    Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide a combined multi-source time difference of arrival (TDOA) tracking and voice activity detection (VAD) mechanism that is applicable for generic array geometries, e.g., a microphone array that lies on a plane. The combined multi-source TDOA tracking and VAD mechanism scans the azimuth and elevation angles of the microphone array in microphone pairs, based on which a planar locus of physically admissible TDOAs can be formed in the multi-dimensional TDOA space of multiple microphone pairs. In this way, the multi-dimensional TDOA tracking reduces the number of calculations that was usually involved in traditional TDOA by performing the TDOA search for each dimension separately.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 13, 2021
    Assignee: SYNAPTICS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi, Francesco Nesta
  • Publication number: 20200219530
    Abstract: Systems and methods include a first voice activity detector operable to detect speech in a frame of a multichannel audio input signal and output a speech determination, a constrained minimum variance adaptive filter operable to receive the multichannel audio input signal and the speech determination and minimize a signal variance at the output of the filter, thereby producing an equalized target speech signal, a mask estimator operable to receive the equalized target speech signal and the speech determination and generate a spectral-temporal mask to discriminate a target speech from noise and interference speech, and a second activity voice detector operable to detect voice in a frame of the speech discriminated signal. An audio input sensor array including a plurality of microphones, each microphone generating a channel of the multichannel audio input signal. A sub-band analysis module operable to decompose each of the channels into a plurality of frequency sub-bands.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 6, 2020
    Publication date: July 9, 2020
    Inventors: Francesco Nesta, Alireza Masnadi-Shirazi