Patents by Inventor Sarmad Aziz Malik

Sarmad Aziz Malik 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).

  • Publication number: 20240096340
    Abstract: A system suppresses howl in a device including microphones and speakers, for example, an artificial reality headset. A speaker of the device presents audio content. The audio content presented by the speaker is received by a microphone of the device thereby creating a howl in certain situations. The system detects the presence of the howl in a region of the audio content using an adaptive notch filter. The system suppresses the howl by reducing gain of one or more frequencies of the audio content. The system may detect presence of the howl by monitoring flatness of the signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2022
    Publication date: March 21, 2024
    Inventors: Sarmad Aziz Malik, Syavosh Zadissa, Xiaofei Chen
  • Patent number: 11722819
    Abstract: An audio system for artificial reality systems is configured to reduce feedback and mitigate entrainment in audio content presented to the user. The audio system utilizes adaptive feedback cancellation processes to reduce feedback. The audio system processes reference signals in a hybrid of the time domain and the frequency domain to achieve rapid convergence with decreased entrainment. The audio system may pre-whiten reference signals and speaker signals and separate the pre-whitened signals into frequency bands using a filter bank. The audio system uses a state space algorithm to generate adaptive filters in each frequency band. The adaptive filters may be applied to the speaker signal to generate a feedback cancelation signal which may be subtracted from the reference signal to decrease feedback.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2021
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2023
    Assignee: Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Sarmad Aziz Malik, Nils Thomas Fritiof Lunner
  • Publication number: 20230090315
    Abstract: An audio system for artificial reality systems is configured to reduce feedback and mitigate entrainment in audio content presented to the user. The audio system utilizes adaptive feedback cancellation processes to reduce feedback. The audio system processes reference signals in a hybrid of the time domain and the frequency domain to achieve rapid convergence with decreased entrainment. The audio system may pre-whiten reference signals and speaker signals and separate the pre-whitened signals into frequency bands using a filter bank. The audio system uses a state space algorithm to generate adaptive filters in each frequency band. The adaptive filters may be applied to the speaker signal to generate a feedback cancelation signal which may be subtracted from the reference signal to decrease feedback.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 21, 2021
    Publication date: March 23, 2023
    Inventors: Sarmad Aziz Malik, Nils Thomas Fritiof Lunner
  • Patent number: 11290834
    Abstract: Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant are provided. An examples process of operating an intelligent automated assistant includes, at an electronic device with one or more processors and memory, receiving audio input, determining a direct-to-reverberant energy ratio based on the audio input, and determining a head pose of a user based on the direct-to-reverberant energy ratio.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 21, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 29, 2022
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Sarmad Aziz Malik, Sreeneel Maddika, Devang K. Naik
  • Publication number: 20210281965
    Abstract: Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant are provided. An examples process of operating an intelligent automated assistant includes, at an electronic device with one or more processors and memory, receiving audio input, determining a direct-to-reverberant energy ratio based on the audio input, and determining a head pose of a user based on the direct-to-reverberant energy ratio.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 21, 2020
    Publication date: September 9, 2021
    Inventors: Sarmad Aziz MALIK, Sreeneel MADDIKA, Devang K. NAIK
  • Patent number: 10978086
    Abstract: An echo canceller is disclosed in which audio signals of the playback content received by one or more of the microphones from a loudspeaker of the device may be used as the playback reference signals to estimate the echo signals of the playback content received by a target microphone for echo cancellation. The echo canceller may estimate the transfer function between a reference microphone and the target microphone based on the playback reference signal of the reference microphone and the signal of the target microphone. To mitigate near-end speech cancellation at the target microphone, the echo canceller may compute a mask to distinguish between target microphone audio signals that are echo-signal dominant and near-end speech dominant. The echo canceller may use the mask to adaptively update the transfer function or to modify the playback reference signal used by the transfer function to estimate the echo signals of the playback content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 19, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 13, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Jason Wung, Sarmad Aziz Malik, Ashrith Deshpande, Ante Jukic, Joshua D. Atkins
  • Publication number: 20210020188
    Abstract: An echo canceller is disclosed in which audio signals of the playback content received by one or more of the microphones from a loudspeaker of the device may be used as the playback reference signals to estimate the echo signals of the playback content received by a target microphone for echo cancellation. The echo canceller may estimate the transfer function between a reference microphone and the target microphone based on the playback reference signal of the reference microphone and the signal of the target microphone. To mitigate near-end speech cancellation at the target microphone, the echo canceller may compute a mask to distinguish between target microphone audio signals that are echo-signal dominant and near-end speech dominant. The echo canceller may use the mask to adaptively update the transfer function or to modify the playback reference signal used by the transfer function to estimate the echo signals of the playback content.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 19, 2019
    Publication date: January 21, 2021
    Inventors: Jason Wung, Sarmad Aziz Malik, Ashrith Deshpande, Ante Jukic, Joshua D. Atkins
  • Publication number: 20200327887
    Abstract: Audio signals produced by microphones can be processed to remove echo and reverberation. The processed signals can be mapped to each other with adaptively estimated impulse responses. One or more of the processed signals, one or more of the mapped signals, and one or more of the impulse responses can be fed to an automatic speech recognizer (ASR) having a deep neural network (DNN), to train the DNN or recognize speech in the input audio signals. Other aspects are described and claimed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 10, 2019
    Publication date: October 15, 2020
    Inventors: Sarmad Aziz Malik, Charles P. Clark, Devang K. Naik, Srikanth Vishnubhotla
  • Patent number: 10540984
    Abstract: Method for echo control using adaptive polynomial filters in sub-band domain starts with loudspeaker that is configured to be driven by a reference signal outputting a loudspeaker signal. Microphone receives at least one of: a near-end speaker signal, ambient noise signal, or the loudspeaker signal and generates a microphone signal. Adaptive polynomial filters in sub-band domain included in adaptive echo canceller (AEC) are configured to adaptively filter representation of the reference signal in a plurality of channels in a sub-band domain based on a clean signal to generate the echo estimate. Echo suppressor is configured to remove an echo estimate from the microphone signal to generate the clean signal. Other embodiments are described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Sarmad Aziz Malik, Arvindh Krishnaswamy
  • Patent number: 10090001
    Abstract: Method of speech enhancement using Neural Network-based combined signal starts with training neural network offline which includes: (i) exciting at least one accelerometer and at least one microphone using training accelerometer signal and training acoustic signal, respectively. The training accelerometer signal and the training acoustic signal are correlated during clean speech segments. Training neural network offline further includes (ii) selecting speech included in the training accelerometer signal and in the training acoustic signal, and (iii) spatially localizing the speech by setting a weight parameter in the neural network based on the selected speech included in the training accelerometer signal and in the training acoustic signal. The neural network that is trained offline is then used to generate a speech reference signal based on an accelerometer signal from the at least one accelerometer and an acoustic signal received from the at least one microphone. Other embodiments are described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2018
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Lalin S. Theverapperuma, Vasu Iyengar, Sarmad Aziz Malik, Raghavendra Prabhu
  • Publication number: 20180033449
    Abstract: Method of speech enhancement using Neural Network-based combined signal starts with training neural network offline which includes: (i) exciting at least one accelerometer and at least one microphone using training accelerometer signal and training acoustic signal, respectively. The training accelerometer signal and the training acoustic signal are correlated during clean speech segments. Training neural network offline further includes (ii) selecting speech included in the training accelerometer signal and in the training acoustic signal, and (iii) spatially localizing the speech by setting a weight parameter in the neural network based on the selected speech included in the training accelerometer signal and in the training acoustic signal. The neural network that is trained offline is then used to generate a speech reference signal based on an accelerometer signal from the at least one accelerometer and an acoustic signal received from the at least one microphone. Other embodiments are described.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 1, 2016
    Publication date: February 1, 2018
    Inventors: Lalin S. Theverapperuma, Vasu Iyengar, Sarmad Aziz Malik, Raghavendra Prabhu
  • Patent number: 9858944
    Abstract: Apparatus for linear and nonlinear acoustic echo control includes loudspeaker, first, second, and third microphone, beamformer, and first echo canceller. The loudspeaker outputs a loudspeaker signal that includes reference signal. The first microphone and the second microphone are collocated with the loudspeaker, receive at least one of: a near-end speaker signal from a near-end speaker and the loudspeaker signal, and generate first and second microphone uplink signals, respectively. The third microphone receives the near-end speaker signal and generates a third microphone uplink signal. The beamformer receives the first and second microphone uplink signals, directs a beam towards the loudspeaker and drives a null towards the near-end speaker, and generates a beamformer output. The first echo canceler receives the third microphone uplink signal and the beamformer output, and cancels echoes in the third microphone uplink signal based on the beamformer output to generate an echo cancelled signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2018
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Sarmad Aziz Malik, Arvindh Krishnaswamy