Patents by Inventor Harvey D. Thornburg
Harvey D. Thornburg 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).
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Patent number: 10614812Abstract: A speech recognition system for resolving impaired utterances can have a speech recognition engine configured to receive a plurality of representations of an utterance and concurrently to determine a plurality of highest-likelihood transcription candidates corresponding to each respective representation of the utterance. The recognition system can also have a selector configured to determine a most-likely accurate transcription from among the transcription candidates. As but one example, the plurality of representations of the utterance can be acquired by a microphone array, and beamforming techniques can generate independent streams of the utterance across various look directions using output from the microphone array.Type: GrantFiled: April 19, 2019Date of Patent: April 7, 2020Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
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Publication number: 20190251974Abstract: A speech recognition system for resolving impaired utterances can have a speech recognition engine configured to receive a plurality of representations of an utterance and concurrently to determine a plurality of highest-likelihood transcription candidates corresponding to each respective representation of the utterance. The recognition system can also have a selector configured to determine a most-likely accurate transcription from among the transcription candidates. As but one example, the plurality of representations of the utterance can be acquired by a microphone array, and beamforming techniques can generate independent streams of the utterance across various look directions using output from the microphone array.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 19, 2019Publication date: August 15, 2019Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
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Patent number: 10304462Abstract: A speech recognition system for resolving impaired utterances can have a speech recognition engine configured to receive a plurality of representations of an utterance and concurrently to determine a plurality of highest-likelihood transcription candidates corresponding to each respective representation of the utterance. The recognition system can also have a selector configured to determine a most-likely accurate transcription from among the transcription candidates. As but one example, the plurality of representations of the utterance can be acquired by a microphone array, and beamforming techniques can generate independent streams of the utterance across various look directions using output from the microphone array.Type: GrantFiled: January 15, 2018Date of Patent: May 28, 2019Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
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Patent number: 10141005Abstract: Systems and techniques for removing non-stationary and/or colored noise can include one or more of the three following innovative aspects: (1) detection of an unwanted target signal, or component thereof, within an observed signal; (2) removal of the target (component) from the observed signal; and (3) filling of a gap in the observed signal generated by removal of the unwanted target (component). Removal regions, frequency bands, and/or regions of the observed signal used to train the gap filler can be adapted in correspondence with local characteristics of the observed signal and/or the target signal (component). Related aspects also are described. For example, disclosed noise detection and/or removal methods can include converting an incoming acoustic signal to a corresponding machine-readable form. And, a corrected signal in machine-readable form can be converted to a human-perceivable form, and/or to a modulated signal form conveyed over a communication connection.Type: GrantFiled: July 1, 2016Date of Patent: November 27, 2018Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Harvey D. Thornburg, Hyung-Suk Kim, Peter A. Raffensperger
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Patent number: 10013981Abstract: A speech recognition system for resolving impaired utterances can have a speech recognition engine configured to receive a plurality of representations of an utterance and concurrently to determine a plurality of highest-likelihood transcription candidates corresponding to each respective representation of the utterance. The recognition system can also have a selector configured to determine a most-likely accurate transcription from among the transcription candidates. As but one example, the plurality of representations of the utterance can be acquired by a microphone array, and beamforming techniques can generate independent streams of the utterance across various look directions using output from the microphone array.Type: GrantFiled: June 6, 2015Date of Patent: July 3, 2018Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
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Patent number: 9984701Abstract: Systems and techniques for removing non-stationary and/or colored noise can include one or more of the three following innovative aspects: (1) detection of an unwanted target signal, or component thereof, within an observed signal; (2) removal of the target (component) from the observed signal; and (3) filling of a gap in the observed signal generated by removal of the unwanted target (component). Removal regions, frequency bands, and/or regions of the observed signal used to train the gap filler can be adapted in correspondence with local characteristics of the observed signal and/or the target signal (component). Related aspects also are described. For example, disclosed noise detection and/or removal methods can include converting an incoming acoustic signal to a corresponding machine-readable form. And, a corrected signal in machine-readable form can be converted to a human-perceivable form, and/or to a modulated signal form conveyed over a communication connection.Type: GrantFiled: July 1, 2016Date of Patent: May 29, 2018Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Harvey D. Thornburg, Hyung-Suk Kim, Peter A. Raffensperger
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Publication number: 20180137864Abstract: A speech recognition system for resolving impaired utterances can have a speech recognition engine configured to receive a plurality of representations of an utterance and concurrently to determine a plurality of highest-likelihood transcription candidates corresponding to each respective representation of the utterance. The recognition system can also have a selector configured to determine a most-likely accurate transcription from among the transcription candidates. As but one example, the plurality of representations of the utterance can be acquired by a microphone array, and beamforming techniques can generate independent streams of the utterance across various look directions using output from the microphone array.Type: ApplicationFiled: January 15, 2018Publication date: May 17, 2018Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
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Patent number: 9865265Abstract: A speech recognition system for resolving impaired utterances can have a speech recognition engine configured to receive a plurality of representations of an utterance and concurrently to determine a plurality of highest-likelihood transcription candidates corresponding to each respective representation of the utterance. The recognition system can also have a selector configured to determine a most-likely accurate transcription from among the transcription candidates. As but one example, the plurality of representations of the utterance can be acquired by a microphone array, and beamforming techniques can generate independent streams of the utterance across various look directions using output from the microphone array.Type: GrantFiled: June 6, 2015Date of Patent: January 9, 2018Assignee: APPLE INC.Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
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Publication number: 20170358314Abstract: Systems and techniques for removing non-stationary and/or colored noise can include one or more of the three following innovative aspects: (1) detection of an unwanted target signal, or component thereof, within an observed signal; (2) removal of the target (component) from the observed signal; and (3) filling of a gap in the observed signal generated by removal of the unwanted target (component). Removal regions, frequency bands, and/or regions of the observed signal used to train the gap filler can be adapted in correspondence with local characteristics of the observed signal and/or the target signal (component). Related aspects also are described. For example, disclosed noise detection and/or removal methods can include converting an incoming acoustic signal to a corresponding machine-readable form. And, a corrected signal in machine-readable form can be converted to a human-perceivable form, and/or to a modulated signal form conveyed over a communication connection.Type: ApplicationFiled: July 1, 2016Publication date: December 14, 2017Inventors: Harvey D. Thornburg, Hyung-Suk Kim, Peter A. Raffensperger
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Publication number: 20170358316Abstract: Systems and techniques for removing non-stationary and/or colored noise can include one or more of the three following innovative aspects: (1) detection of an unwanted target signal, or component thereof, within an observed signal; (2) removal of the target (component) from the observed signal; and (3) filling of a gap in the observed signal generated by removal of the unwanted target (component). Removal regions, frequency bands, and/or regions of the observed signal used to train the gap filler can be adapted in correspondence with local characteristics of the observed signal and/or the target signal (component). Related aspects also are described. For example, disclosed noise detection and/or removal methods can include converting an incoming acoustic signal to a corresponding machine-readable form. And, a corrected signal in machine-readable form can be converted to a human-perceivable form, and/or to a modulated signal form conveyed over a communication connection.Type: ApplicationFiled: July 1, 2016Publication date: December 14, 2017Inventors: Harvey D. Thornburg, Hyung-Suk Kim, Peter A. Raffensperger
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Patent number: 9754607Abstract: An acoustic-scene interpretation apparatus can have a transducer configured to convert an acoustic signal to a corresponding electrical signal. A feature extractor can receive a sequence of frames representing the electrical signal and extract a plurality of acoustic features corresponding to each frame. An acoustic-scene classifier can be configured to determine a most-likely acoustic state for each frame in the sequence of frames in correspondence with the respective plurality of acoustic features corresponding to the frame and a selected probability distribution of duration of an acoustic state for each of one or more classes of acoustic scenes. Each respective probability distribution of duration can correspond to a selected class of acoustic scenes. The correspondence between acoustic state and probability distribution of duration can be learned from training data corresponding to each of a plurality of classes of acoustic scenes. Related methods also are disclosed.Type: GrantFiled: August 26, 2015Date of Patent: September 5, 2017Assignee: APPLE INC.Inventors: Harvey D. Thornburg, Charles Pascal Clark
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Publication number: 20170061969Abstract: An acoustic-scene interpretation apparatus can have a transducer configured to convert an acoustic signal to a corresponding electrical signal. A feature extractor can receive a sequence of frames representing the electrical signal and extract a plurality of acoustic features corresponding to each frame. An acoustic-scene classifier can be configured to determine a most-likely acoustic state for each frame in the sequence of frames in correspondence with the respective plurality of acoustic features corresponding to the frame and a selected probability distribution of duration of an acoustic state for each of one or more classes of acoustic scenes. Each respective probability distribution of duration can correspond to a selected class of acoustic scenes. The correspondence between acoustic state and probability distribution of duration can be learned from training data corresponding to each of a plurality of classes of acoustic scenes. Related methods also are disclosed.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 26, 2015Publication date: March 2, 2017Inventors: Harvey D. Thornburg, Charles Pascal Clark
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Publication number: 20160358619Abstract: A speech recognition system for resolving impaired utterances can have a speech recognition engine configured to receive a plurality of representations of an utterance and concurrently to determine a plurality of highest-likelihood transcription candidates corresponding to each respective representation of the utterance. The recognition system can also have a selector configured to determine a most-likely accurate transcription from among the transcription candidates. As but one example, the plurality of representations of the utterance can be acquired by a microphone array, and beamforming techniques can generate independent streams of the utterance across various look directions using output from the microphone array.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 6, 2015Publication date: December 8, 2016Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
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Publication number: 20160358606Abstract: A speech recognition system for resolving impaired utterances can have a speech recognition engine configured to receive a plurality of representations of an utterance and concurrently to determine a plurality of highest-likelihood transcription candidates corresponding to each respective representation of the utterance. The recognition system can also have a selector configured to determine a most-likely accurate transcription from among the transcription candidates. As but one example, the plurality of representations of the utterance can be acquired by a microphone array, and beamforming techniques can generate independent streams of the utterance across various look directions using output from the microphone array.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 6, 2015Publication date: December 8, 2016Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
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Patent number: 9378755Abstract: Method of detecting voice activity starts with by generating probabilistic models that respectively model features of speech dynamically over time. Probabilistic models may model each feature dependent on a past feature and a current state. Features of speech may include a nonstationary signal presence feature, a periodicity feature, and a sparsity feature. Noise suppressor may then perform noise suppression on an acoustic signal to generate a nonstationary signal presence signal and a noise suppressed acoustic signal. An LPC module may then perform residual analysis on the noise suppressed data signal to generate a periodicity signal and a sparsity signal. Inference generator receives the probabilistic models and receives, in real-time, nonstationary signal presence signal, periodicity signal, and sparsity signal. Inference generator may then generate in real time an estimate of voice activity based on the probabilistic models, nonstationary signal presence signal, periodicity signal, and sparsity signal.Type: GrantFiled: September 30, 2014Date of Patent: June 28, 2016Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Harvey D. Thornburg, Charles P. Clark
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Publication number: 20150348572Abstract: Method of detecting voice activity starts with by generating probabilistic models that respectively model features of speech dynamically over time. Probabilistic models may model each feature dependent on a past feature and a current state. Features of speech may include a nonstationary signal presence feature, a periodicity feature, and a sparsity feature. Noise suppressor may then perform noise suppression on an acoustic signal to generate a nonstationary signal presence signal and a noise suppressed acoustic signal. An LPC module may then perform residual analysis on the noise suppressed data signal to generate a periodicity signal and a sparsity signal. Inference generator receives the probabilistic models and receives, in real-time, nonstationary signal presence signal, periodicity signal, and sparsity signal. Inference generator may then generate in real time an estimate of voice activity based on the probabilistic models, nonstationary signal presence signal, periodicity signal, and sparsity signal.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 30, 2014Publication date: December 3, 2015Inventors: Harvey D. Thornburg, Charles P. Clark