Patents by Inventor Jan Skoglund

Jan Skoglund 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: 11443756
    Abstract: Provided are methods and systems for enhancing speech when corrupted by transient noise (e.g., keyboard typing noise). The methods and systems utilize a reference microphone input signal for the transient noise in a signal restoration process used for the voice part of the signal. A robust Bayesian statistical model is used to regress the voice microphone on the reference microphone, which allows for direct inference about the desired voice signal while marginalizing the unwanted power spectral values of the voice and transient noise. Also provided is a straightforward and efficient Expectation-maximization (EM) procedure for fast enhancement of the corrupted signal. The methods and systems are designed to operate easily in real-time on standard hardware, and have very low latency so that there is no irritating delay in speaker response.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 21, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 13, 2022
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Simon J. Godsill, Herbert Buchner, Jan Skoglund
  • Patent number: 11380342
    Abstract: Provided are methods, systems, and apparatus for hierarchical decorrelation of multichannel audio. A hierarchical decorrelation algorithm is designed to adapt to possibly changing characteristics of an input signal, and also preserves the energy of the original signal. The algorithm is invertible in that the original signal can be retrieved if needed. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm decomposes the decorrelation process into multiple low-complexity steps. The contribution of these steps is generally in a decreasing order, and thus the complexity of the algorithm can be scaled.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 5, 2022
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Minyue Li, Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund
  • Patent number: 11297424
    Abstract: Techniques of source localization and acquisition involve a wideband joint acoustic source localization and acquisition approach in light of sparse optimization framework based on an orthogonal matching pursuit-based grid-shift procedure. Along these lines, a specific grid structure is constructed with the same number of grid points as compared to the on-grid case, but which is “shifted” across the acoustic scene. More specifically, it is expected that each source will be located close to a grid point in at least one of the set of shifted grids. The sparse solutions corresponding to the set of shifted grids are combined to obtain the source location estimates. The estimated source positions are used as side information to obtain the original source signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2022
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund, Christos Tzagkarakis
  • Publication number: 20210287038
    Abstract: Implementations identify a small set of independent, salient features from an input signal. The salient features may be used for conditioning a generative network, making the generative network robust to noise. The salient features may facilitate compression and data transmission. An example method includes receiving an input signal and extracting salient features for the input signal by providing the input signal to an encoder trained to extract salient features. The salient features may be independent and have a sparse distribution. The encoder may be configured to generate almost identical features from two input signals a system designer deems equivalent. The method also includes conditioning a generative network using the salient features. In some implementations, the method may also include extracting a plurality of time sequences from the input signal and extracting the salient features for each time sequence.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 16, 2019
    Publication date: September 16, 2021
    Inventors: Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Sze Chie Lim, Michael Chinen, Jan Skoglund
  • Patent number: 10861479
    Abstract: Techniques of performing linear acoustic echo cancellation performing a phase correction operation on the estimate of the echo signal based on a clock drift between a capture of an input microphone signal and a playout of a loudspeaker signal. Along these lines, the existence of the clock drift, i.e., a small difference in the sampling rates of the input microphone signal and the loudspeaker signal, can cause processing circuitry in a device configured to perform LAEC operations to generate a filter based on the magnitudes of the short-term Fourier transforms (STFTs) of the input microphone signal and the loudspeaker signal. Such a filter is real-valued and results in a positive estimate of the acoustic echo signal included in the input microphone signal. The phase of this estimate may then be aligned with the phase of the input microphone signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Turaj Zakizadeh Shabestary, Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund
  • Patent number: 10839815
    Abstract: A method includes: receiving a representation of a soundfield, the representation characterizing the soundfield around a point in space; decomposing the received representation into independent signals; and encoding the independent signals, wherein a quantization noise for any of the independent signals has a common spatial profile with the independent signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 6, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund, Sze Chie Lim
  • Publication number: 20200349964
    Abstract: Provided are methods and systems for enhancing speech when corrupted by transient noise (e.g., keyboard typing noise). The methods and systems utilize a reference microphone input signal for the transient noise in a signal restoration process used for the voice part of the signal. A robust Bayesian statistical model is used to regress the voice microphone on the reference microphone, which allows for direct inference about the desired voice signal while marginalizing the unwanted power spectral values of the voice and transient noise. Also provided is a straightforward and efficient Expectation-maximization (EM) procedure far fast enhancement of the corrupted signal. The methods and systems are designed to operate easily in real-time on standard hardware, and have very low latency so that there is no irritating delay in speaker response.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 21, 2020
    Publication date: November 5, 2020
    Applicant: Google LLC
    Inventors: Simon J. Godsill, Herbert Buchner, Jan Skoglund
  • Patent number: 10755726
    Abstract: Provided are methods and systems for enhancing speech when corrupted by transient noise (e.g., keyboard typing noise). The methods and systems utilize a reference microphone input signal for the transient noise in a signal restoration process used for the voice part of the signal. A robust Bayesian statistical model is used to regress the voice microphone on the reference microphone, which allows for direct inference about the desired voice signal while marginalizing the unwanted power spectral values of the voice and transient noise. Also provided is a straightforward and efficient Expectation-maximization (EM) procedure for fast enhancement of the corrupted signal. The methods and systems are designed to operate easily in real-time on standard hardware, and have very low latency so that there is no irritating delay in speaker response.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 7, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 25, 2020
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Simon J. Godsill, Herbert Buchner, Jan Skoglund
  • Publication number: 20200176009
    Abstract: Provided are methods, systems, and apparatus for hierarchical decorrelation of multichannel audio. A hierarchical decorrelation algorithm is designed to adapt to possibly changing characteristics of an input signal, and also preserves the energy of the original signal. The algorithm is invertible in that the original signal can be retrieved if needed. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm decomposes the decorrelation process into multiple low-complexity steps. The contribution of these steps is generally in a decreasing order, and thus the complexity of the algorithm can be scaled.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 3, 2020
    Publication date: June 4, 2020
    Inventors: Minyue Li, Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund
  • Patent number: 10672405
    Abstract: A computing device includes a processor and a memory. The processor is configured to generate spectrograms, for example, using short-time Fourier transform, for a plurality of channels of reference and test ambisonic signals. In some implementations, the test ambisonic signal may be generated by decoding an encoded version of the reference ambisonic signal. The processor is further configured to compare, for each of the plurality of channels of a reference ambisonic signal, at least a patch associated with a channel of the reference ambisonic signal with at least a corresponding patch of a corresponding channel of the test ambisonic signal and determine a localization accuracy of the test ambisonic signal based on the comparison. In some implementations, the comparing may be based on phaseograms of the reference and test ambisonic signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Andrew Hines, Jan Skoglund, Andrew Allen, Miroslaw Narbutt
  • Publication number: 20200152220
    Abstract: Techniques of performing linear acoustic echo cancellation performing a phase correction operation on the estimate of the echo signal based on a clock drift between a capture of an input microphone signal and a playout of a loudspeaker signal. Along these lines, the existence of the clock drift, i.e., a small difference in the sampling rates of the input microphone signal and the loudspeaker signal, can cause processing circuitry in a device configured to perform LAEC operations to generate a filter based on the magnitudes of the short-term Fourier transforms (STFTs) of the input microphone signal and the loudspeaker signal. Such a filter is real-valued and results in a positive estimate of the acoustic echo signal included in the input microphone signal. The phase of this estimate may then be aligned with the phase of the input microphone signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 10, 2019
    Publication date: May 14, 2020
    Inventors: Turaj Zakizadeh Shabestary, Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund
  • Publication number: 20200120419
    Abstract: Techniques of source localization and acquisition involve a wide-band joint acoustic source localization and acquisition approach in light of sparse optimization framework based on an orthogonal matching pursuit-based grid-shift procedure. Along these lines, a specific grid structure is constructed with the same number of grid points as compared to the on-grid case, but which is “shifted” across the acoustic scene. More specifically, it is expected that each source will be located close to a grid point in at least one of the set of shifted grids. The sparse solutions corresponding to the set of shifted grids are combined to obtain the source location estimates. The estimated source positions are used as side information to obtain the original source signals.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 10, 2018
    Publication date: April 16, 2020
    Inventors: Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund, Christos Tzagkarakis
  • Patent number: 10553234
    Abstract: Provided are methods, systems, and apparatus for hierarchical decorrelation of multichannel audio. A hierarchical decorrelation algorithm is designed to adapt to possibly changing characteristics of an input signal, and also preserves the energy of the original signal. The algorithm is invertible in that the original signal can be retrieved if needed. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm decomposes the decorrelation process into multiple low-complexity steps. The contribution of these steps is generally in a decreasing order, and thus the complexity of the algorithm can be scaled.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2020
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Minyue Li, Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund
  • Patent number: 10490203
    Abstract: Techniques of performing linear acoustic echo cancellation performing a phase correction operation on the estimate of the echo signal based on a clock drift between a capture of an input microphone signal and a playout of a loudspeaker signal. Along these lines, the existence of the clock drift, i.e., a small difference in the sampling rates of the input microphone signal and the loudspeaker signal, can cause processing circuitry in a device configured to perform LAEC operations to generate a filter based on the magnitudes of the short-term Fourier transforms (STFTs) of the input microphone signal and the loudspeaker signal. Such a filter is real-valued and results in a positive estimate of the acoustic echo signal included in the input microphone signal. The phase of this estimate may then be aligned with the phase of the input microphone signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2019
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Turaj Zakizadeh Shabestary, Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund
  • Publication number: 20190341060
    Abstract: A computing device includes a processor and a memory. The processor is configured to generate spectrograms, for example, using short-time Fourier transform, for a plurality of channels of reference and test ambisonic signals. In some implementations, the test ambisonic signal may be generated by decoding an encoded version of the reference ambisonic signal. The processor is further configured to compare, for each of the plurality of channels of a reference ambisonic signal, at least a patch associated with a channel of the reference ambisonic signal with at least a corresponding patch of a corresponding channel of the test ambisonic signal and determine a localization accuracy of the test ambisonic signal based on the comparison. In some implementations, the comparing may be based on phaseograms of the reference and test ambisonic signals.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 7, 2018
    Publication date: November 7, 2019
    Inventors: Andrew Hines, Jan Skoglund, Andrew Allen, Miroslaw Narbutt
  • Publication number: 20190259397
    Abstract: A method includes: receiving a representation of a soundfield, the representation characterizing the soundfield around a point in space; decomposing the received representation into independent signals; and encoding the independent signals, wherein a quantization noise for any of the independent signals has a common spatial profile with the independent signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 6, 2019
    Publication date: August 22, 2019
    Inventors: Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund, Sze Chie Lim
  • Patent number: 10332530
    Abstract: A method includes: receiving a representation of a soundfield, the representation characterizing the soundfield around a point in space; decomposing the received representation into independent signals; and encoding the independent signals, wherein a quantization noise for any of the independent signals has a common spatial profile with the independent signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2019
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund, Sze Chie Lim
  • Publication number: 20190096418
    Abstract: Provided are methods, systems, and apparatus for hierarchical decorrelation of multichannel audio. A hierarchical decorrelation algorithm is designed to adapt to possibly changing characteristics of an input signal, and also preserves the energy of the original signal. The algorithm is invertible in that the original signal can be retrieved if needed. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm decomposes the decorrelation process into multiple low-complexity steps. The contribution of these steps is generally in a decreasing order, and thus the complexity of the algorithm can be scaled.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2018
    Publication date: March 28, 2019
    Inventors: Minyue Li, Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Jan Skoglund
  • Patent number: 10141000
    Abstract: Provided are methods, systems, and apparatus for hierarchical decorrelation of multichannel audio. A hierarchical decorrelation algorithm is designed to adapt to possibly changing characteristics of an input signal, and also preserves the energy of the original signal. The algorithm is invertible in that the original signal can be retrieved if needed. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm decomposes the decorrelation process into multiple low-complexity steps. The contribution of these steps is generally in a decreasing order, and thus the complexity of the algorithm can be scaled.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 15, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 27, 2018
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Minyue Li, Jan Skoglund, Willem Bastiaan Kleijn
  • Patent number: 10045137
    Abstract: Techniques of performing acoustic echo cancellation involve providing a bi-magnitude filtering operation that performs a first filtering operation when a magnitude of an incoming audio signal to be output from a loudspeaker is less than a specified threshold and a second filtering operation when the magnitude of the incoming audio signal is greater than the threshold. The first filtering operation may take the form of a convolution between the incoming audio signal and a first impulse response function. The second filtering operation may take the form of a convolution between a nonlinear function of the incoming audio signal and a second impulse response function. For such a convolution, the bi-magnitude filtering operation involves providing, as the incoming audio signal, samples of the incoming audio signal over a specified window of time. The first and second impulse response functions may be determined from an input signal input into a microphone.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 7, 2018
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Jan Skoglund, Yiteng Huang, Alejandro Luebs