Patents by Inventor Atsuhiro Sakurai

Atsuhiro Sakurai 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: 8275475
    Abstract: Methods, digital systems, and computer readable media are provided for estimating change of amplitude and frequency in a digital audio signal by transforming a frame of the digital audio signal to the frequency domain, locating a frequency peak in the transformed frame, determining an interpolated peak of the located frequency peak, computing inner products of a portion of the transformed frame about the interpolated peak with a plurality of test signals, and estimating change of amplitude and change of frequency for the frequency peak from results of the inner products.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 18, 2008
    Date of Patent: September 25, 2012
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Steven David Trautmann, Atsuhiro Sakurai, Ryo Tsutsui
  • Patent number: 8213622
    Abstract: This invention is a method for binaural localization using a cascade of resonators and anti-resonators to implement an HRTF (head-related transfer function). The spectrum of the cascade reproduces the magnitude spectrum of a desired HRTF. The proposed method provides a considerably more computationally efficient implementation of HRTF filters with no detectable deterioration of output quality while saving memory when storing a large quantity of HRTFs due to the parameterization of its resonators and anti-resonators. Finally, the method offers additional flexibility since the resonators and anti-resonators can be manipulated individually during the design process, making it possible to interpolate smoothly between HRTFs, reduce spectral coloring or achieve higher accuracy at perceptually relevant frequency regions. These HRTF are useful in stereo enhancement and multi-channel virtual surround simulation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 3, 2012
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven Trautmann
  • Patent number: 8155972
    Abstract: This invention involves time-scale modification of audio signals. The invention describes overlap and add time scale modification with variable input and output buffer sizes. Seamless speed change is achieved by keeping track of previously processed data to avoid discontinuities during playback speed transitions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 5, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2012
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Yoshihide Iwata
  • Patent number: 8121299
    Abstract: Methods, digital systems, and computer readable media are provided for detection of music in an audio signal. Music is detected by partitioning the audio signal into overlapping frames, determining a fundamental frequency of a frame in the overlapping frames, including the fundamental frequency of the frame in a histogram of fundamental frequency values of frames occurring in the audio signal prior to the frame, and indicating that music is present in the audio signal when a number of occurrences of a fundamental frequency value in the histogram exceeds a threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven David Trautmann
  • Patent number: 8085940
    Abstract: Rebalancing of an audio signal refers to achieving a balance of perceived loudness, typically of right and left channels, given an unbalanced input. A flexible method to automatically rebalance an audio input signal is robust against noise in extreme cases through the individual channels combined in various ways as a function of the loudness ratio between input channels.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2011
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Steven David Trautmann, Atsuhiro Sakurai, Ryo Tsutsui
  • Patent number: 8085951
    Abstract: Methods, digital systems, and computer readable media are provided for determining a gain reduction parameter level for loudspeaker equalization by determining a noise score, an equalization effectiveness score, and an equalization non-effectiveness score for a candidate gain reduction parameter level, determining a composite quality score using the three scores, and designing a compensating filter for the loudspeaker using the candidate gain reduction parameter level if the composite quality score is better than composite quality scores of all other candidate gain reduction parameter levels.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2011
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Steven David Trautmann, Akihiro Yonemoto, Atsuhiro Sakurai
  • Patent number: 8085958
    Abstract: Audio loudspeaker virtualizers and cross-talk cancellers and methods use a combination of interaural intensity difference and interaural time difference to define virtualizing filters. This allows enlargement of a listener's sweet spot based on psychoacoustic effects.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2011
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Steven Trautmann, Atsuhiro Sakurai, Akihiro Yonemoto
  • Patent number: 8065140
    Abstract: Methods, digital systems, and computer readable media are provided for determining a predominant fundamental frequency of a frame of an audio signal by finding a maximum absolute signal value in history data for the frame, determining a number of bits for downshifting based on the maximum absolute signal value, computing autocorrelations for the frame using signal values downshifted by the number of bits, and determining the predominant fundamental frequency using the computed autocorrelations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 2008
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2011
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven David Trautmann
  • Patent number: 8050934
    Abstract: This invention locally controls the pitch of speech and audio signals. The invention is based on a seamless time scale modification (S-TSM) scheme connected to a synchronized sampling rate converter that switches between different time scale factors in a seamless manner and controls pitch during playback in a nearly continuous way.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 29, 2007
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2011
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Yoshihide Iwata, Steven D. Trautmann
  • Patent number: 8019598
    Abstract: This invention improves the perceived quality of frequency-domain time scale modification by selection of spectral bands used in phase locking based upon a Bark scale according to the variation in human hearing frequency response. A spectral peak is identified for each band. At these peaks the phases are rotated using the phase vocoder algorithm. For a few spectral lines near these peaks, the phase differences are copied from the non-rotated spectrum. The number selected is preferably 4. Remaining spectral lines within each spectral band located farther from the peak are phase rotated using the phase vocoder algorithm. The boundaries of the spectral bands may be adjusted based upon the digital audio data to maintain important frequency groups within the same spectral band.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2003
    Date of Patent: September 13, 2011
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven Trautmann
  • Patent number: 7974418
    Abstract: Audio loudspeaker and headphone virtualizers and cross-talk cancellers and methods use separate virtual speaker locations for different Bark frequency bands and a single reverberation filter for multi-channel virtualizer inputs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 5, 2011
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven D. Trautmann, Hironori Kakemizu, Yoshihide Iwata
  • Publication number: 20110026718
    Abstract: Audio loudspeaker and headphone virtualizers and cross-talk cancellers and methods use separate virtual speaker locations for different Bark frequency bands and a single reverberation filter for multi-channel virtualizer inputs.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 7, 2010
    Publication date: February 3, 2011
    Applicant: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Steven D. Trautmann, Atsuhiro Sakurai, Hironori Kakemizu
  • Patent number: 7835535
    Abstract: Audio loudspeaker and headphone virtualizers and cross-talk cancellers and methods use separate virtual speaker locations for different Bark frequency bands and a single reverberation filter for multi-channel virtualizer inputs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2010
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Steven D. Trautmann, Atsuhiro Sakurai, Hironori Kakemizu
  • Publication number: 20100239097
    Abstract: Methods, digital systems, and computer readable media are provided for determining a gain reduction parameter level for loudspeaker equalization by determining a noise score, an equalization effectiveness score, and an equalization non-effectiveness score for a candidate gain reduction parameter level, determining a composite quality score using the three scores, and designing a compensating filter for the loudspeaker using the candidate gain reduction parameter level if the composite quality score is better than composite quality scores of all other candidate gain reduction parameter levels.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 23, 2009
    Publication date: September 23, 2010
    Inventors: Steven David Trautmann, Akihiro Yonemoto, Atsuhiro Sakurai
  • Publication number: 20100158258
    Abstract: This invention is a method for binaural localization using a cascade of resonators and anti-resonators to implement an HRTF (head-related transfer function). The spectrum of the cascade reproduces the magnitude spectrum of a desired HRTF. The proposed method provides a considerably more computationally efficient implementation of HRTF filters with no detectable deterioration of output quality while saving memory when storing a large quantity of HRTFs due to the parameterization of its resonators and anti-resonators. Finally, the method offers additional flexibility since the resonators and anti-resonators can be manipulated individually during the design process, making it possible to interpolate smoothly between HRTFs, reduce spectral coloring or achieve higher accuracy at perceptually relevant frequency regions. These HRTF are useful in stereo enhancement and multi-channel virtual surround simulation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 3, 2010
    Publication date: June 24, 2010
    Applicant: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven Trautmann
  • Patent number: 7715575
    Abstract: Audio loudspeaker and headphone virtualizers and methods use room impulse responses with modified individual head-related transfer functions prior to superposition including middle truncation; and perform convolutions in the frequency domain with zero-padded sections to avoid circular convolution overlap.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2006
    Date of Patent: May 11, 2010
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven David Trautmann
  • Patent number: 7680289
    Abstract: This invention is a method for binaural localization using a cascade of resonators and anti-resonators to implement an HRTF (head-related transfer function). The spectrum of the cascade reproduces the magnitude spectrum of a desired HRTF. The proposed method provides a considerably more computationally efficient implementation of HRTF filters with no detectable deterioration of output quality while saving memory when storing a large quantity of HRTFs due to the parameterization of its resonators and anti-resonators. Finally, the method offers additional flexibility since the resonators and anti-resonators can be manipulated individually during the design process, making it possible to interpolate smoothly between HRTFs, reduce spectral coloring or achieve higher accuracy at perceptually relevant frequency regions. These HRTF are useful in stereo enhancement and multi-channel virtual surround simulation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 4, 2004
    Date of Patent: March 16, 2010
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven Trautmann
  • Patent number: 7580761
    Abstract: A time-domain time-scale modification method based on the synchronous overlap-and-add method consists of a generalization of the envelope-matching time-scale modification method. The cross-correlation function employs a fixed-size cross-correlation buffer to eliminate the need for normalization inside the search loop. This fixed-size cross-correlation buffer is the center of the overlap region corresponding to the case where the fine overlap adjustment value is set to zero. The computational cost of this invention is lower than any other method with a comparable quality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 25, 2009
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Yoshihide Iwata
  • Publication number: 20090144064
    Abstract: This invention locally controls the pitch of speech and audio signals. The invention is based on a seamless time scale modification (S-TSM) scheme connected to a synchronized sampling rate converter that switches between different time scale factors in a seamless manner and controls pitch during playback in a nearly continuous way.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 29, 2007
    Publication date: June 4, 2009
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Yoshihide Iwata, Steven D. Trautmann
  • Patent number: 7536017
    Abstract: Audio cross-talk cancellation by inverse HRTF matrix only for low frequencies; high frequencies rely upon the natural barrier of a listener's head. The low frequency cutoff is determined by a peak in the inverse matrix of the head-related transfer functions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 10, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2009
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Atsuhiro Sakurai, Steven Trautmann