Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090010453 | INTELLIGENT GRADIENT NOISE REDUCTION SYSTEM - An intelligent noise reduction system ( | 01-08-2009 |
20090059821 | ACOUSTIC ECHO CANCELLATION BASED ON NOISE ENVIRONMENT | 03-05-2009 |
20090106021 | ROBUST TWO MICROPHONE NOISE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM - A system, method, and apparatus for separating speech signal from a noisy acoustic environment. The separation process may include directional filtering, blind source separation, and dual input spectral subtraction noise suppressor. The input channels may include two omnidirectional microphones whose output is processed using phase delay filtering to form speech and noise beamforms. Further, the beamforms may be frequency corrected. The omnidirectional microphones generate one channel that is substantially only noise, and another channel that is a combination of noise and speech. A blind source separation algorithm augments the directional separation through statistical techniques. The noise signal and speech signal are then used to set process characteristics at a dual input noise spectral subtraction suppressor (DINS) to efficiently reduce or eliminate the noise component. In this way, the noise is effectively removed from the combination signal to generate a good qualify speech signal. | 04-23-2009 |
20090169040 | DEVICES AND METHODS FOR ENHANCING THE FREQUENCY OUTPUT OF A PORTABLE AUDIO DEVICE - Disclosed are passive acoustic structures, portable audio devices configured for use with the passive acoustic structures and methods for enhancing the frequency output of a speaker of a portable device configured for use with a disclosed passive acoustic structure. The disclosed portable audio device may include an opening proximal a speaker cavity of the device, a shutter or door to open and close the opening so that the device interoperates with a docking station of a passive acoustic structure including a labyrinth or a transmission line system that may increase the frequency range of the system. For an end user to experience the music and multimedia features of a portable audio device, and in particular a mobile communication device, the above-described passive acoustic structure may provide a bass enhancement for the typically small loudspeaker of a portable audio device with no additional loudspeaker and therefore no additional circuitry. | 07-02-2009 |
20090169041 | ACOUSTIC RECONFIGURATION DEVICES AND METHODS - Disclosed is a portable audio device and a quick-disconnect passive acoustic cover. The portable audio device includes a housing and a speaker supported by the housing that have a first system frequency response. The speaker of the portable audio device has a first side and a second side associated with a first audio port and a second audio port, associated with a first acoustic load and a second acoustic load respectively. The housing is configured to removably receive the cover which is configured to redefine at least one of the first acoustic load and the second acoustic load to replace the first system frequency response with a second system frequency response. The cover provides one or more additional surrounding structures, which replace the inherent frequency response with an improved frequency response. Different embodiments of the disclosed cover provide a plurality of sound quality enhancement options to a user. | 07-02-2009 |
20110212754 | Flip-Type Communication Device with a Single Output Audio Transducer - A flip-type communication device | 09-01-2011 |
20110317848 | Microphone Interference Detection Method and Apparatus - A method and apparatus for detecting microphone interference includes first and second built-in microphones producing first and second microphone signals. A first filter bank creates first high-frequency-band and first low-frequency-band signals from the first microphone signal. A second filter bank creates second high-frequency-band and second low-frequency-band signals from the second microphone signal. A first measurement calculator determines a high-frequency-band energy value from the first high-frequency-band signal and the second high-frequency-band signal when the first and second high-frequency-band signals' magnitudes exceeds predetermined thresholds. A second measurement calculator calculates a low-frequency-band energy value from the first low-frequency-band signal and the second low-frequency-band signal when the first and second low-frequency-band signals' magnitudes exceed predetermined thresholds. A logic control block, coupled to the first measurement calculator and the second measurement calculator, detects microphone interference and produces an output signal indicating microphone occlusion or wind noise. | 12-29-2011 |
20130021503 | Electronic Apparatus Having Microphones with Controllable Front-Side Gain and Rear-Side Gain - An electronic apparatus is provided that has a rear-side and a front-side, a first microphone that generates a first signal, and a second microphone that generates a second signal. An automated balance controller generates a balancing signal based on a proximity sensor signal. A processor processes the first and second signals to generate at least one beamformed audio signal, where an audio level difference between a front-side gain and a rear-side gain of the beamformed audio signal is controlled during processing based on the balancing signal. | 01-24-2013 |
20140270150 | Apparatus with Dynamic Audio Signal Pre-Conditioning and Methods Therefor - An apparatus includes an echo canceller having an audio signal input and an audio signal output and dynamic pre-conditioning logic. The dynamic pre-conditioning logic is operatively coupled to the echo canceller audio signal output as a feedback signal and has a dynamic pre-conditioning logic output operatively coupled to the echo canceller audio signal input. The dynamic pre-conditioning logic is also operative to receive an audio signal input from at least one microphone. The dynamic pre-conditioning logic is operative to analyze the feedback signal to obtain at least one characteristic, and pre-condition the audio signal input, based on the at least one characteristic of the feedback signal, and provide a pre-conditioned audio signal at the echo canceller audio signal input. The echo canceller audio signal output is then provided to a noise suppressor for the send path of a full duplex communication channel. | 09-18-2014 |
20140270217 | Apparatus with Adaptive Microphone Configuration Based on Surface Proximity, Surface Type and Motion - An apparatus includes a group of microphones and a surface compensator that is operatively coupled to switch logic and to a signal conditioner that provides a control channel to voice recognition logic. The surface compensator may detect surfaces in proximity to the apparatus as well as the surface's acoustic reflectivity or acoustic absorptivity and may accordingly configure the group of microphones including selecting appropriate signal conditioning and beamforming based on the surface acoustic reflectivity or acoustic absorptivity and the orientation of the apparatus. Voice recognition performance is thus improved when microphones are impeded or occluded by proximate surfaces. A group of sensors of the apparatus is used by the surface compensator to detect surfaces and surface type, and to determine apparatus orientation and motion. | 09-18-2014 |
20140274212 | Method and Apparatus for Acoustically Characterizing an Environment in which an Electronic Device Resides - A method and apparatus for adapting acoustic processing in a communication device, and capturing at least one acoustic signal using acoustic hardware of the communication device, characterizing an acoustic environment external to the communication device using the at least one captured acoustic signal, adapting acoustic processing within the communication device based on the characterized acoustic environment. | 09-18-2014 |
20140278392 | Method and Apparatus for Pre-Processing Audio Signals - The disclosure is directed to pre-processing audio signals. In one implementation, an electronic device receives an audio signal that has audio information, obtains auxiliary information (such as location, velocity, direction, light, proximity of objects, and temperature), and determines, based on the audio information and the auxiliary information, a type of audio environment in which the electronic device is operating. The device selects an audio pre-processing procedure based on the determined audio environment type and pre-processes the audio signal according to the selected pre-processing procedure. The device may then perform speech recognition on the pre-processed audio signal. | 09-18-2014 |
20140278393 | Apparatus and Method for Power Efficient Signal Conditioning for a Voice Recognition System - A disclosed method includes monitoring an audio signal energy level while having a plurality of signal processing components deactivated and activating at least one signal processing component in response to a detected change in the audio signal energy level. The method may include activating and running a voice activity detector on the audio signal in response to the detected change where the voice activity detector is the at least one signal processing component. The method may further include activating and running the noise suppressor only if a noise estimator determines that noise suppression is required. The method may activate and runs a noise type classifier to determine the noise type based on information received from the noise estimator and may select a noise suppressor algorithm, from a group of available noise suppressor algorithms, where the selected noise suppressor algorithm is the most power consumption efficient. | 09-18-2014 |
20140278415 | Voice Recognition Configuration Selector and Method of Operation Therefor - A method includes obtaining a speech sample from a pre-processing front-end of a first device, identifying at least one condition, and selecting a voice recognition speech model from a database of speech models, the selected voice recognition speech model trained under the at least one condition. The method may include performing voice recognition on the speech sample using the selected speech model. A device includes a microphone signal pre-processing front end and operating-environment logic, operatively coupled to the pre-processing front end. The operating-environment logic is operative to identify at least one condition. A voice recognition configuration selector is operatively coupled to the operating-environment logic, and is operative to receive information related to the at least one condition from the operating-environment logic and to provide voice recognition logic with an identifier for a voice recognition speech model trained under the at least one condition. | 09-18-2014 |
20140278416 | Method and Apparatus Including Parallell Processes for Voice Recognition - A method and apparatus for voice recognition performed in a voice recognition block comprising a plurality of voice recognition stages. The method includes receiving a first plurality of voice inputs, corresponding to a first phrase, into a first voice recognition stage of the plurality of voice recognition stages, wherein multiple ones of the voice recognition stages includes a plurality of voice recognition modules and multiples ones of the voice recognition stages perform a different type of voice recognition processing, wherein the first voice recognition stage processes the first plurality of voice inputs to generate a first plurality of outputs for receipt by a subsequent voice recognition stage. The method further includes, receiving by each subsequent voice recognition stage a plurality of outputs from a preceding voice recognition stage, wherein a plurality of final outputs is generated by a final voice recognition stage from which to approximate the first phrase. | 09-18-2014 |
20140278420 | Method and Apparatus for Training a Voice Recognition Model Database - An electronic device digitally combines a single voice input with each of a series of noise samples. Each noise sample is taken from a different audio environment (e.g., street noise, babble, interior car noise). The voice input/noise sample combinations are used to train a voice recognition model database without the user having to repeat the voice input in each of the different environments. In one variation, the electronic device transmits the user's voice input to a server that maintains and trains the voice recognition model database. | 09-18-2014 |
20150039310 | Method and Apparatus for Mitigating False Accepts of Trigger Phrases - An electronic device includes a microphone that receives an audio signal, and a processor that is electrically coupled to the microphone. The processor detects a trigger phrase in the received audio signal and measure characteristics of the detected trigger phrase. Based on the measured characteristics of the detected trigger phrase, the processor determines whether the detected trigger phrase is valid. | 02-05-2015 |
20150039311 | Method and Apparatus for Evaluating Trigger Phrase Enrollment - An electronic device includes a microphone that receives an audio signal that includes a spoken trigger phrase, and a processor that is electrically coupled to the microphone. The processor measures characteristics of the audio signal, and determines, based on the measured characteristics, whether the spoken trigger phrase is acceptable for trigger phrase model training. If the spoken trigger phrase is determined not to be acceptable for trigger phrase model training, the processor rejects the trigger phrase for trigger phrase model training. | 02-05-2015 |