Patents by Inventor Sean A. Ramprashad

Sean A. Ramprashad 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: 20230410828
    Abstract: Disclosed is a reference-less echo mitigation or cancellation technique. The technique enables suppression of echoes from an interference signal when a reference version of the interference signal conventionally used for echo mitigation may not be available. A first stage of the technique may use a machine learning model to model a target audio area surrounding a device so that a target audio signal estimated as originating from within the target audio area may be accepted. In contrast, audio signals such as playback of media content on a TV or other interfering signals estimated as originating from outside the target audio area may be suppressed. A second stage of the technique may be a level-based suppressor that further attenuates the residual echo from the output of the first stage based on an audio level threshold. Side information may be provided to adjust the target audio area or the audio level threshold.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 21, 2022
    Publication date: December 21, 2023
    Inventors: Ramin Pishehvar, Mehrez Souden, Sean A. Ramprashad, Jason Wung, Ante Jukic, Joshua D. Atkins
  • Patent number: 11832077
    Abstract: A method performed a local device that is communicatively coupled with several remote devices, the method includes: receiving, from each remote device with which the local device is engaged in a communication session, an input audio stream; receiving, for each remote device, a set parameters; determining, for each input audio stream, whether the input audio stream is to be 1) rendered individually or 2) rendered as a mix of input audio streams based on the set of parameters; for each input audio stream that is determined to be rendered individually, spatial rendering the input audio stream as an individual virtual sound source that contains only that input audio stream; and for input audio streams that are determined to be rendered as the mix of input audio streams, spatial rendering the mix of input audio streams as a single virtual sound source that contains the mix of input audio streams.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 4, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Peter D. Callaway, Jae Woo Chang, Martin E. Johnson, Daniel K. Boothe, Kostyantyn Komarov, Patrick Miauton, Christopher M. Garrido, Austin W. Shyu, Karthick Santhanam
  • Patent number: 11812194
    Abstract: A method performed by a processor of an electronic device. The method presents a computer-generated reality (CGR) setting including a first user and several other users. The method obtains, from a microphone, an audio signal that contains speech of the first user. The method obtains, from a sensor, sensor data that represents a physical characteristic of the first user. The method determines, based on the sensor data, whether to initiate a private conversation between the first user and a second user of the other users, and in accordance with a determination to initiate the private conversation, initiates the private conversation by providing the audio signal to the second user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: James W. Vandyke, Nikolas T. Vitt, Sean A. Ramprashad, Neal D. Evans, Jonathan D. Sheaffer
  • Patent number: 11721355
    Abstract: A first device obtains, from the array, several audio signals and processes the audio signals to produce a speech signal and one or more ambient signals. The first device processes the ambient signals to produce a sound-object sonic descriptor that has metadata describing a sound object within an acoustic environment. The first device transmits, over a communication data link, the speech signal and the descriptor to a second electronic device that is configured to spatially reproduce the sound object using the descriptor mixed with the speech signal, to produce several mixed signals to drive several speakers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 22, 2022
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Christopher T. Eubank, Lance Jabr, Matthew S. Connolly, Robert D. Silfvast, Sean A. Ramprashad, Carlos Avendano, Miquel Espi Marques
  • Publication number: 20230020542
    Abstract: A computer system outputs audio content via one or more audio output devices. If the audio content includes information that enables spatialization of the audio content, the system outputs the audio content in a simulated three-dimensional environment, including, if the audio content corresponds to a first category of content, causing the one or more audio output devices to simulate production of the audio content in a first virtual space, and if the audio content corresponds to a second category of content, causing the one or more audio output devices to simulate production of the audio content in a second virtual space that has different simulated acoustic properties than simulated acoustic properties of the first virtual space.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 16, 2022
    Publication date: January 19, 2023
    Inventors: Darius A. Satongar, Per HÃ¥kan Linus Persson, Sean B. Kelly, Martin E. Johnson, Tony S. Verma, Peter D. Callaway, Jae Woo Chang, Daniel K. Boothe, Sean A. Ramprashad, Patrick Miauton, Christopher M. Garrido, Mitchell R. Lerner, Charles C. Hoyt
  • Publication number: 20220394407
    Abstract: A method performed a local device that is communicatively coupled with several remote devices, the method includes: receiving, from each remote device with which the local device is engaged in a communication session, an input audio stream; receiving, for each remote device, a set parameters; determining, for each input audio stream, whether the input audio stream is to be 1) rendered individually or 2) rendered as a mix of input audio streams based on the set of parameters; for each input audio stream that is determined to be rendered individually, spatial rendering the input audio stream as an individual virtual sound source that contains only that input audio stream; and for input audio streams that are determined to be rendered as the mix of input audio streams, spatial rendering the mix of input audio streams as a single virtual sound source that contains the mix of input audio streams.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 4, 2021
    Publication date: December 8, 2022
    Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Peter D. Callaway, Jae Woo Chang, Martin E. Johnson, Daniel K. Boothe, Kostyantyn Komarov, Patrick Miauton, Christopher M. Garrido, Austin W. Shyu, Karthick Santhanam
  • Patent number: 11456006
    Abstract: A method performed by a processor of an audio source device. The method drives an audio output device of the audio source device to output a sound with an audio output signal. The method obtains a microphone signal from a microphone of the audio source device, the microphone signal capturing the outputted sound. The method determines whether the audio output device is a headset or a loudspeaker based on the microphone signal and configures an acoustic dosimetry process based on the determination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 2021
    Date of Patent: September 27, 2022
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Joseph M. Williams, Sean A. Ramprashad, Nathan de Vries, Nicholas Felton
  • Publication number: 20220180889
    Abstract: A first device obtains, from the array, several audio signals and processes the audio signals to produce a speech signal and one or more ambient signals. The first device processes the ambient signals to produce a sound-object sonic descriptor that has metadata describing a sound object within an acoustic environment. The first device transmits, over a communication data link, the speech signal and the descriptor to a second electronic device that is configured to spatially reproduce the sound object using the descriptor mixed with the speech signal, to produce several mixed signals to drive several speakers.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 22, 2022
    Publication date: June 9, 2022
    Inventors: Christopher T. Eubank, Lance Jabr, Matthew S. Connolly, Robert D. Silfvast, Sean A. Ramprashad, Carlos Avendano, Miquel Espi Marques
  • Patent number: 11295754
    Abstract: A first device obtains, from the array, several audio signals and processes the audio signals to produce a speech signal and one or more ambient signals. The first device processes the ambient signals to produce a sound-object sonic descriptor that has metadata describing a sound object within an acoustic environment. The first device transmits, over a communication data link, the speech signal and the descriptor to a second electronic device that is configured to spatially reproduce the sound object using the descriptor mixed with the speech signal, to produce several mixed signals to drive several speakers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2022
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Christopher T. Eubank, Lance Jabr, Matthew S. Connolly, Robert D. Silfvast, Sean A. Ramprashad, Carlos Avendano, Miquel Espi Marques
  • Publication number: 20220059123
    Abstract: Processing of ambience and speech can include extracting from audio signals, ambience and speech signals. One or more spatial parameters can be generated that define spatial characteristics of ambience sound in the one or more ambience audio signals. The primary speech signal, the one or more ambience audio signals, and the spatial parameters can be encoded into one or more encoded data streams. Other aspects are described and claimed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 29, 2021
    Publication date: February 24, 2022
    Inventors: Jonathan D. Sheaffer, Joshua D. Atkins, Mehrez Souden, Symeon Delikaris Manias, Sean A. Ramprashad
  • Publication number: 20210358515
    Abstract: A method performed by a processor of an audio source device. The method drives an audio output device of the audio source device to output a sound with an audio output signal. The method obtains a microphone signal from a microphone of the audio source device, the microphone signal capturing the outputted sound. The method determines whether the audio output device is a headset or a loudspeaker based on the microphone signal and configures an acoustic dosimetry process based on the determination.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 15, 2021
    Publication date: November 18, 2021
    Inventors: Joseph M. Williams, Sean A. Ramprashad, Nathan de Vries, Nicholas Felton
  • Publication number: 20210035597
    Abstract: A first device obtains, from the array, several audio signals and processes the audio signals to produce a speech signal and one or more ambient signals. The first device processes the ambient signals to produce a sound-object sonic descriptor that has metadata describing a sound object within an acoustic environment. The first device transmits, over a communication data link, the speech signal and the descriptor to a second electronic device that is configured to spatially reproduce the sound object using the descriptor mixed with the speech signal, to produce several mixed signals to drive several speakers.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 28, 2020
    Publication date: February 4, 2021
    Inventors: Christopher T. Eubank, Lance Jabr, Matthew S. Connolly, Robert D. Silfvast, Sean A. Ramprashad, Carlos Avendano, Miquel Espi Marques
  • Patent number: 10861210
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure can provide systems, methods, and computer-readable medium for providing audio and/or video effects based at least in part on facial features and/or voice feature characteristics of the user. For example, video and/or an audio signal of the user may be recorded by a device. Voice audio features and facial feature characteristics may be extracted from the voice audio signal and the video, respectively. The facial features of the user may be used to modify features of a virtual avatar to emulate the facial feature characteristics of the user. The extracted voice audio features may modified to generate an adjusted audio signal or an audio signal may be composed from the voice audio features. The adjusted/composed audio signal may simulate the voice of the virtual avatar. A preview of the modified video/audio may be provided at the user's device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Carlos M. Avendano, Sean A. Ramprashad
  • Patent number: 10833994
    Abstract: A hybrid user equipment and advanced user equipment data offloading architecture is provided. In this hybrid architecture, the advanced user equipment includes a backhaul link to a telecommunication network and/or the Internet. The user equipment can send and receive data through the advanced user equipment using the backhaul link.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2020
    Assignee: NTT DOCOMO, INC.
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Ishii, Sean A. Ramprashad, Sayandev Mukherjee
  • Patent number: 10636434
    Abstract: An aspect of this disclosure relates to noise and/or echo suppression for a device in which noise and echo suppression are adaptively determined as noise and echo change in an environment that surrounds the device. An aspect can use a skewed maximal ratio combining technique or a spatial filter with coefficients that are adaptively determined based on a perceptually selected target ratio that is compared to a ratio of sound energies/levels based on a pair of the coefficients. Another aspect relates to the use of information in one frequency band to perform additional noise and/or echo suppression in one or more adjacent frequency bands.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 28, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventor: Sean A. Ramprashad
  • Patent number: 10614857
    Abstract: In some implementations, a computing device can calibrate media playback channels for presenting media content through a media system by determining the media propagation latency through the media system. For example, the computing device can send calibration content (e.g., audio data, video data, etc.) to various playback devices (e.g., playback channels) of the media system and record a timestamp indicating when the calibration content was sent. When the playback devices present the calibration content, a sensor device (e.g., remote control device, smartphone, etc.) can detect the presentation of the calibration content. The sensor device can send calibration data (e.g., media samples that may include the calibration content and/or a timestamp indicating when the media sample was detected by the sensor device) to the computing device. The computing device can determine the propagation latency (e.g., presentation delay) based on the calibration data received from the sensor device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Langford M Wasada, Vijay Sundaram, William M Bumgarner, Daniel H Lloyd, Christopher J Sanders, Sean A Ramprashad, Sriram Hariharan, Jarrad A Stallone, Johannes P Schmidt, David P Saracino, Gregory R Chapman
  • Patent number: 10614812
    Abstract: 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: Grant
    Filed: April 19, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Harvey D. Thornburg, Arvindh Krishnaswamy, Aram M. Lindahl
  • Publication number: 20200005830
    Abstract: In some implementations, a computing device can calibrate media playback channels for presenting media content through a media system by determining the media propagation latency through the media system. For example, the computing device can send calibration content (e.g., audio data, video data, etc.) to various playback devices (e.g., playback channels) of the media system and record a timestamp indicating when the calibration content was sent. When the playback devices present the calibration content, a sensor device (e.g., remote control device, smartphone, etc.) can detect the presentation of the calibration content. The sensor device can send calibration data (e.g., media samples that may include the calibration content and/or a timestamp indicating when the media sample was detected by the sensor device) to the computing device. The computing device can determine the propagation latency (e.g., presentation delay) based on the calibration data received from the sensor device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 2, 2018
    Publication date: January 2, 2020
    Applicant: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Langford M. Wasada, Vijay Sundaram, William M. Bumgarner, Daniel H. Lloyd, Christopher J. Sanders, Sean A. Ramprashad, Sriram Hariharan, Jarrad A. Stallone, Johannes P. Schmidt, David P. Saracino, Gregory R. Chapman
  • Patent number: 10482899
    Abstract: An audio system has a housing in which are integrated a number of microphones. A programmed processor accesses the microphone signals and produces a number of acoustic pick up beams based groups of microphones, an estimation of voice activity and an estimation of noise characteristics on each beam. Two or more beams including a voice beam that is used to pick up a desired voice and a noise beam that is used to provide information to estimate ambient noise are adaptively selected from among the plurality of beams, based on thresholds for voice separation and thresholds for noise-matching. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 19, 2019
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Sean A. Ramprashad, Esge B. Andersen, Joshua D. Atkins, Sorin V. Dusan, Vasu Iyengar, Tarun Pruthi, Lalin S. Theverapperuma
  • Patent number: 10454829
    Abstract: A network device in a wireless communication system includes a first communication circuit that receives a first control-plane message from a base station (BS) over a first communication link; a second communication circuit that transmits user-plane data to a user equipment (UE) over a second communication link established responsive to the first control-plane message; and a third communication circuit that receives the user-plane traffic data from a server over a third communication link. The UE communicates user-plane data with the BS and the network device simultaneously at a predetermined time. The first communication circuit receives a second control-plane message from the BS. The second communication circuit transmits a pilot signal to the UE responsive to the second control-plane message to enable the UE to measure a radio link quality of the second communication link using the pilot signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 22, 2019
    Assignee: NTT DOCOMO, INC.
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Ishii, Sean A. Ramprashad, Sayandev Mukherjee