Patents by Inventor Douglas L. Beck

Douglas L. Beck 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: 9788109
    Abstract: Architectures of numbers of microphones and their positioning in a device for sound source direction estimation and source separation are presented. The directions of sources are front, back, left, right, top, and bottom of the device, and can be determined by amplitude and phase differences of microphone signals with proper microphone positioning. The source separation is to separate the sound coming from different directions from the mix of sources in microphone signals. This can be done with blind source separation (BSS), independent component analysis (ICA), and beamforming (BF) technologies. The device can perform many kinds of audio enhancements for the device. For example, it can perform noise reduction for communications; it can choose a source from a desired direction to perform speech recognition; and it can correct sound perceiving directions in microphones and generate desired sound images like stereo audio output. In addition, with source separation, 2.1, 5.1, 7.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2017
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Youhong Lu, Chun Beng Goh, Douglas L. Beck, Jia Hua, Ilya Khorosh
  • Publication number: 20170070814
    Abstract: Architectures of numbers of microphones and their positioning in a device for sound source direction estimation and source separation are presented. The directions of sources are front, back, left, right, top, and bottom of the device, and can be determined by amplitude and phase differences of microphone signals with proper microphone positioning. The source separation is to separate the sound coming from different directions from the mix of sources in microphone signals. This can be done with blind source separation (BSS), independent component analysis (ICA), and beamforming (BF) technologies. The device can perform many kinds of audio enhancements for the device. For example, it can perform noise reduction for communications; it can choose a source from a desired direction to perform speech recognition; and it can correct sound perceiving directions in microphones and generate desired sound images like stereo audio output. In addition, with source separation, 2.1, 5.1, 7.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 9, 2015
    Publication date: March 9, 2017
    Inventors: Youhong Lu, Chun Beng Goh, Douglas L. Beck, Jia Hua, Ilya Khorosh
  • Patent number: 8441549
    Abstract: A method for suppressing banding and rolling flicker in video acquired by a video camera. The method comprises acquiring a plurality of video frames and assessing an amount of rolling flicker in the plurality of video frames. The method further comprises configuring the video camera to quiet banding and rolling flicker responsive to periodic illumination at a first frequency if the amount of rolling flicker is above a threshold, and, configuring the video camera to quiet banding and rolling flicker responsive to periodic illumination at a second frequency if the amount of rolling flicker is below the threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 14, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Yi He, Stuart William Milton, Todd Nelson Schoepflin, Andrew Juenger, Roy Goh, Douglas L. Beck
  • Publication number: 20110187893
    Abstract: A method for suppressing banding and rolling flicker in video acquired by a video camera. The method comprises acquiring a plurality of video frames and assessing an amount of rolling flicker in the plurality of video frames. The method further comprises configuring the video camera to quiet banding and rolling flicker responsive to periodic illumination at a first frequency if the amount of rolling flicker is above a threshold, and, configuring the video camera to quiet banding and rolling flicker responsive to periodic illumination at a second frequency if the amount of rolling flicker is below the threshold.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 28, 2010
    Publication date: August 4, 2011
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Yi He, Stuart William Milton, Todd Nelson Schoepflin, Andrew Juenger, Roy Goh, Douglas L. Beck