2405results about "Earpiece/earphone noise reduction" patented technology

An active headset system is provided with compatibility with existing socket configurations in a way that minimizes the number of electrical connections. The number of connections between the active headset and the remote noise cancellation circuitry is reduced through the use of a common contact, having a controlled impedance, that serves as an input connection to corresponding terminals of the two earphones of the active headset. According to another aspect of the present invention, the transients associated with plugging in or unplugging stereo jack plugs or up to a seven pin connector into an active headset may be overcome by a transient detector in the noise cancellation circuitry. Yet another aspect of the present invention concerns the powering of the noise cancellation circuitry whether the noise cancellation circuitry is placed inside the active headset or at least partially internal to a remote external device.

An ear terminal includes a sealing section arranged for use in the ear meatus of a human, with an inner microphone having a sound inlet for being directed into the meatus and an electronic unit including filtering elements coupled to the inner microphone for filtering the signal from the inner microphone, the filtering elements being programmable to transform the signals based on the sounds received in the ear by the inner microphone into sounds having essentially the characteristics of spoken sounds of the wearer of the ear terminal.

A wearable wireless audio device includes a support, an electronics circuit, and a speaker. The support includes a first ear stem and an orbital, and is configured to support at least one lens in a wearer's field of view. The electronics circuit is supported by the support and is configured to receive at least one digital audio file and generate an audio signal indicative of the at least one digital audio file. The speaker is supported by the support, and is directed toward at least one of the wearer's ears. The speaker is configured to convert the audio signal into sound. The speaker has a speaker face, and the speaker is configured to rotate from a first position in which the speaker face is substantially parallel to a yz-plane to a second position in which the speaker is inclined at an angle with respect to the yz-plane. The speaker is coupled to the support with a speaker pivot, and is configured to rotate about the speaker pivot while maintaining the speaker face substantially parallel to a yz-plane. The speaker is configured to move along an axis substantially parallel to a z-axis with respect to the support.

Ear protecting device with a sealing section for acoustically sealing the meatus of a human, includes a sound generator with a sound outlet for being directed toward the user meatus; an inner microphone with a sound inlet from the meatus, arranged for measuring the resulting sound field in the meatus; connected to an electronics unit including a sound analyser coupled to the inner microphone, for analyzing sound characteristics of the resulting sound field in the meatus, producing analyzed sound characteristics; storing part in the electronics unit for storing measured predetermined sound characteristics of a properly functioning ear protecting device; a comparing part in the electronics unit for comparing the inner microphone analyzed sound characteristics with the stored measured predetermined sound characteristics; indicating part coupled to the comparing part for being activated if the analyzed sound characteristics differ significantly from the predetermined sound characteristics.

An active noise cancellation system includes a series of features for more effective cancellation, greater reliability, and improved stability. A particular feature adapted for headset systems includes locating a residual microphone radially offset from the center of a sound generator to detect a signal more similar to that incident upon the eardrum of the user. In addition, an open back headset design includes perforations on the side of the headset instead of the back, so that the perforations are less susceptible to inadvertent blockage. The system also includes a mechanism for detecting changes in the acoustic characteristics of the environment that may be caused, for example, by pressure exerted upon the earpieces, and that may destabilize the cancellation system. The system automatically responds to such changes, for example, by reducing the gain or the frequency response of the system to preserve stability. The system further includes other methods for detecting imminent instability and compensating, such as detecting the onset of signals within enhancement frequencies characteristic of the onset of instability, and adjusting the gain or frequency response of the system or suppressing the enhanced signals. The system further includes a mechanism for conserving battery life by turning the system off when sound levels are low, or adjusting the power supply to the system to correspond to the current power requirements of the system.

One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for providing audio enhancement to a user of a listening device. The technique includes reproducing a first audio stream, such as an audio stream associated with a media player. The technique further includes detecting a voice trigger. The voice trigger may be associated with a name of a user of the listening device. The technique further includes pausing or attenuating the first audio stream and reproducing a second audio stream associated with ambient sound in response to detecting the voice trigger.

Improved vocal signals are obtained in headsets and similar devices by including a microphone inside a chamber formed at least in part by the wearer's ear. This second microphone provides a reduced noise input signal. The reduced noise signal is corrected by input from another microphone, located outside the chamber. This correction can include echo cancellation, spectral shaping, frequency extension, and the like.

An apparatus for detecting sound includes a plurality of microphones, a sound inspecting unit, a direction estimating unit, a background noise removing unit, and an alerting unit. The microphones are used to collect sounds around a user. The sound inspecting unit is used to calculate the feature values of a background noise within a preset time interval, and to determine if a latest collected sound satisfies a preset condition. When the preset condition is satisfied, the direction estimating unit is used to estimate the occurrence direction of the latest collected sound, and to determine if the occurrence direction is within a preset range behind the user. When the preset range is satisfied, the background noise removing unit is used to remove the background noise in the latest collected sound so as to obtain a detected sound. The alerting unit is used to inform the user of the detected sound via an alert message. A method for detecting sound is also disclosed.

Devices and methods of detecting a predetermined audio signal in audio signals are provided. A device includes a processor coupled to a clock signal generator, a power controller and an audio detector. The power controller controls a clock rate provided to the processor by the clock signal generator, to control the device to operate in a low power mode having a relatively low power consumption or in a normal power mode having a relatively high power consumption. The audio detector receives audio signals and detects, in the low power mode, probable presence of a predetermined audio signal in the audio signals. The power controller controls the device to switch from the low power mode to the normal power mode responsive to the detected presence of the predetermined audio signal by the audio detector.

A self calibrating dipole microphone formed from two omni-directional acoustic sensors. The microphone includes a sound source acoustically coupled to the acoustic sensors and a processor. The sound source is excited with a test signal, exposing the acoustic sensors to acoustic calibration signals. The responses of the acoustic sensors to the calibration signals are compared by the processor, and one or more correction factors determined. Digital filter coefficients are calculated based on the one or more correction factors, and applied to the output signals of the acoustic sensors to compensate for differences in the sensitivities of the acoustic sensors. The filtered signals provide acoustic sensor outputs having matching responses, which are subtractively combined to form the dipole microphone output.

A personal audio device, such as a wireless telephone, includes an adaptive noise canceling (ANC) circuit that adaptively generates an anti-noise signal from a reference microphone signal and injects the anti-noise signal into the speaker or other transducer output to cause cancellation of ambient audio sounds. An error microphone is also provided proximate the speaker to measure the ambient sounds and transducer output near the transducer, thus providing an indication of the effectiveness of the noise canceling. A processing circuit uses the reference and / or error microphone, optionally along with a microphone provided for capturing near-end speech, to determine whether the ANC circuit is incorrectly adapting or may incorrectly adapt to the instant acoustic environment and / or whether the anti-noise signal may be incorrect and / or disruptive and then take action in the processing circuit to prevent or remedy such conditions.

An augmented reality sound systems is disclosed. An augmented reality sound system includes a at least one microphone for receiving ambient sound and a memory storing one or more augmented reality sound profiles and a respective set of processing parameters. The system further includes a processor coupled to the memory and configured to generate augmented ambient sound from the ambient sound by reproducing the ambient sound in conjunction with processed sound superimposed over the ambient sound as directed by one or more of the set of processing parameters retrieved from the memory based on a selected augmented reality sound profile.

A method comprises processing M subband communication signals and N target-cancelled signals in each subband with a set of beamformer coefficients to obtain an inverse target-cancelled covariance matrix of order N in each band; using a target absence signal to obtain an initial estimate of the noise power in a beamformer output signal averaged over recent frames with target absence in each subband; multiplying the initial noise estimate with a noise correction factor to obtain a refined estimate of the power of the beamformer output noise signal component in each subband; processing the refined estimate with the magnitude of the beamformer output to obtain a postfilter gain value in each subband; processing the beamformer output signal with the postfilter gain value to obtain a postfilter output signal in each subband; and processing the postfilter output subband signals to obtain an enhanced beamformed output signal.

Directional piezoelectric devices and methods for their manufacture are provided that improve the quality of piezoelectric device mediated signal detection and provide new thermal imaging devices. The devices can provide over an order of magnitude improved signal to noise ratio compared with previously known devices. The devices may be used along with new head mounted acoustic technologies for improved voice communication systems in inherently noisy environments. The head mounted technologies utilize microphones that are activated by pressure wherein the applied trigger pressure further serves to improve efficiency of the microphones. Also provided are head pieces that include both microphones and speakers that are particularly useful for harsh environments such as those encountered by fire fighters. The head pieces are capable of further functions related to contact with the head of the user, such as reporting physiological variables of the user, along with oral communications.

A device (120) for processing data for a wearable apparatus (100, 110), the device (120) comprising an input unit (122) adapted to receive input data, means (124, 116, 117) for generating information, referred to as wearing information (WI), which is based on sensor information and indicates a state, referred to as wearing state, in which the wearable apparatus (100) is worn, and a processing unit (121) adapted to process the input data on the basis of the wearing information (WI), thereby generating output data.

An apparatus includes first and second microphone arrangements, arranged to output first and second signals respectively and is operable in a first mode and a second mode. In the first mode, an output signal is generated based on the second signal and a third signal, where the second signal and, optionally, the first signal, can be used to compensate for ambient noise, for example, for noise cancellation when a telephone call is relayed through a speaker. In the second mode, an output signal is generated based on the first and second signals. In this manner, the combination of the first and second microphone arrangements provides a directional sensitivity that can pick up sound from a remote source, for example, in an audio or video recording session. The apparatus may include a sensor to allow automatic switching between one or more of modes, directional sensitivity patterns and types of recording session.

A UAV is provided to cancel background noise from audio data collected by the UAV. The UAV is provided with one or more background microphones in a proximity of one or more background noise-producing components. The UAV is also provided with one or more audio source collecting microphones. The audio data collected by the background microphones may be used to reduce or cancel interfering background noise from the audio signal detected by the audio source collecting microphone. The target audio may be captured or recorded with little or no background noise.

New and improved electroacoustic devices each including at least one transducer assembly having one or more microphones typically mounted on a baffle plate and disposed in substantially the same acoustic plane as a speaker or speakers. In the various embodiments, at least one microphone and at least one speaker face the same or opposite directions. Each microphone may be parallel to or oriented at an angle with respect to the speaker. In other embodiments, the speaker includes a central opening or cavity in which a microphone having one of various orientations is provided. The orientations of the microphone or microphones with respect to the speaker or speakers minimize adverse noise reduction effects associated with the differences in sensitivities, frequency responses and phase responses and acoustic time delays between the microphones and the speaker or speakers, as well as minimize sound reflections that are picked up by the microphone or microphones.

A system and method for interjecting ambient background sounds into a set of headphones is provided. The system monitors an ambient sound environment and compares the ambient sound environment to a preset set of sound characteristics (e.g., frequency signatures, amplitudes and durations) in order to detect important or critical background sounds (e.g., alarm, horn, directed vocal communications, crying baby, doorbell, telephone, etc.). When a critical background sound is detected, the system interjects either a notification signal or a portion of the ambient background into the audio stream, thus alerting a user of a potentially important sound or event occurring within their immediate vicinity.

A wearable audio device in the form of eyeglasses speaker mounts supported by the frames of the eyeglass. The speaker mounts are constructed so as to be translatable along the ear stems of the eyeglass. This allows a wearer to move the speakers without changing the shape of the speaker mount, which can occur where the speaker mounts are made from some flexible materials.

A noise reducing device includes: an acoustic-to-electric conversion section for collecting noise and outputting an analog noise signal; an analog-to-digital conversion section for converting the analog noise signal into a digital noise signal; and a digital processing section for generating a digital noise reducing signal on a basis of the digital noise signal and a desired parameter. The device further includes: a retaining section for retaining a plurality of parameters corresponding to a plurality of kinds of noise characteristics; a setting section for setting one of the plurality of parameters as the desired parameter of the digital processing section; a digital-to-analog conversion section for converting the digital noise reducing signal into an analog noise reducing signal; and an electric-to-acoustic conversion section for outputting noise reducing sound on a basis of the analog noise reducing signal.

The present invention discloses a microphone array structure able to reduce noise and improve speech quality and a method thereof. The method of the present invention comprises steps: using at least two microphone to receive at least two microphone signals each containing a noise signal and a speech signal; using FFT modules to transform the microphone signals into frequency-domain signals; calculating an included angle between a speech signal and a noise signal of the microphone signal, and selecting a phase difference estimation algorithm, a noise reduction algorithm or both to reduce noise according to the included angle; if the phase difference estimation algorithm is used, calculating phase difference of the microphone signals to obtain a time-space domain mask signal; and multiplying the mask signal and the average of the microphone signals to obtain the speech signals of the microphone signals. Thereby is eliminated noise and improve speech quality.

According to an aspect, a sound outputting device includes a front unit, a first side unit, a second side unit, a sound transmitting portion, and a piezoelectric speaker. The first side unit is coupled to one end portion of the front unit. The second side unit is coupled to another end portion of the front unit. The sound transmitting portion is provided in the first side unit for transmitting a sound via cartilage conduction. The piezoelectric speaker vibrates the sound transmitting portion.

A headset for voice communication is disclosed, the headset comprising at least one earphone having a speaker and one or more microphones. The headset is configured to be operated in a first mode in which an electronic noise cancelling circuit is configured to receive ambient audio via at least a first of the one or more microphones to implement an active noise cancelling function and to provide a noise cancelling audio signal to the speaker, and in a second mode in which ambient audio is provided as a hear-through audio signal to the speaker. The headset for voice communication is configured to detect whether a call is ongoing, and to provide a call signal in response to the detection. The headset comprises the electronic noise cancelling circuit, a voice activity detection unit configured to indicate when a user speaks, a switching element configured to switch the headset between operating in the first mode and operating in the second mode, wherein, when the headset is operated in the first mode and the call signal indicates that the user is not in a call, the switching element is configured to switch the headset from operating in the first mode to operating in the second mode when the voice activity detection unit indicates that the user speaks.

An apparatus and method provides control over the relative level of audio and background sound for an audio device such as a headset or headphones. An input sound transducer can be provided and configured to convert ambient acoustical pressure into an electrical background signal representing the background sound. Noise cancellation circuitry create a cancellation signal that is the inverse of the electrical background signal. A summing component is coupled to the noise cancellation component and combines the cancellation signal with an audio signal representing audio program content and provides the combined electrical signal to an output sound transducer. A controller is coupled to the noise cancellation component and is configured to control the level of a cancellation signal relative to the audio signal, thereby controlling the mix of cancellation signal and audio signal reaching the output sound transducer.