205results about "Transducer protection circuits" patented technology

Embodiments are directed to a wearable audio device, such as an earbud. The earbud may be configured to detect input using various sensors and structures. For example, the earbud may be configured to detect gestures, physical manipulations, and so forth performed along or on the earbud. In response to the detected inputs, the earbud may be configured to change various outputs, such as an audio output or a haptic output of the device. The earbud may also include a microphone to register voice commands. In some cases, the microphone may be used to control the earbud using the registered voice command in response to one or more detected gestures or physical manipulations.

Provided are an audio playing module and an audio processing circuit thereof, and an electronic device, which belong to the technical field of electronics. In the audio processing circuit, by adding a feedback control circuit between a power circuit and an audio amplifier, the feedback control circuit can control, according to a change in the amplitude of an audio signal received by the audio amplifier, the power circuit to adjust a power supply voltage provided for the audio amplifier. Thus, when the amplitude of the audio signal changes, an appropriate power supply voltage can be matched for the audio amplifier by means of the feedback control circuit, thereby solving the problem of the audio playing module generating whistling when the amplitude of the audio signal changes, and thus optimizing the sound quality of played sounds.

A system configured to reduce loudspeaker distortion by performing nonlinear signal processing is provided. A device may include preprocessing component(s) that apply nonlinear signal correction prior to sending a playback audio signal to a driver in order to compensate for a nonlinear response of the driver. While the driver response may be nonlinear, a combination of the preprocessing and the nonlinear driver response results in a combined response that is linear and / or compensates for the nonlinear driver response. For example, applying the nonlinear driver response to a processed audio signal may result in output audio generated by the driver accurately reproducing the playback audio signal input to the preprocessing components. To train the preprocessing components to apply the nonlinear signal correction, a deep neural network (DNN) is trained to model the driver response.

A system may include a first input configured to receive a playback signal to be played back to a transducer, a second input configured to receive temperature information associated with the transducer, and a thermal-controlled gain element configured to determine a sub-band gain to be applied to a selected frequency band of the playback signal, wherein the thermal-controlled gain element determines the gain based on the temperature information and apply the sub-band gain to the selected frequency band.

In at least one embodiment, a loudspeaker system is provided. The at least loudspeaker system includes one loudspeaker comprising, an amplifier, and at least one controller. The at least one loudspeaker system transmits an audio output signal. The amplifier transmits a driving signal to the loudspeaker to transmit the audio output signal in response to a first audio signal. The controller includes a parameter estimation block that generates loudspeaker system parameters and a feed-forward processing block that models the loudspeaker system to provide the first audio signal to the amplifier based on modeled loudspeaker system parameters. The controller includes an adaption switch that controls the parameter estimation block based on at least one of a measured characteristic of the driving signal provided by the amplifier and a measured response associated with at least one characteristic of the at least one loudspeaker.

A read circuit for capacitive sensors such as a MEMS microphones includes a sensor node configured to be coupled to a capacitive sensor to apply a bias voltage to the sensor and sense the capacitance value of the sensor wherein the voltage at the sensor node is indicative of the capacitance value of the capacitive sensor. A switch is provided between the sensor node and the intermediate node. A shock detector coupled to the sensor node and the switch asserts a shock signal to make the switch conductive in response to a shock applied to the capacitive sensor, and de-asserts the shock signal to make the switch non-conductive with a delay after the end of the shock applied to the capacitive sensor.

The proposed solution relates to a computer-implemented method for outputting an amplified audio output signal (S2) using an amplification unit (1) for an acoustic vehicle warning system (100) to generate sound audible from persons in the vicinity of a vehicle (200). The method involves receiving an audio input signal (S1) and a temperature value (T) from a temperature sensing unit (20). A control unit (10) of the amplification unit (1) adjusts the amplification of the audio input signal (S1), taking into account at least one temperature reduction measure depending on the temperature value (T), in order to generate the audio output signal (S2). According to the proposed solution, the temperature reduction measure comprises at least one of i.a. adjusting the audio input signal (S1) with respect to at least one frequency (F1) of the audio input signal (S1) while maintaining or increasing the gain of at least one other frequency (F2) of the audio input signal (S1), ii. reducing an operating frequency of the amplification unit (1), and iii. adding at least one frequency (F3) to the audio output signal (S2) that is not included in the audio input signal (S1).

An audio system, including at least one approximating circuit, the at least one approximating circuit configured to apply an approximated gain to the input signal, the least one approximating circuit outputting an approximated signal; a limiter configured to reduce a magnitude of the input signal by a gain determined by an amount the magnitude of the approximated filtered signal exceeds a predetermined threshold, the limiter outputting a limited input signal; a filter being respectively configured to receive the limited input signal and to respectively apply a filter gain, the filters outputting a plurality of filtered signals, wherein the approximated gain is substantially similar to the filter gain of one of the plurality of equalization filters; and a speaker array comprising a plurality of speakers, each speaker configured to receive a respective filtered signal of the plurality of filtered signals and to transduce the filtered signal to an audio signal.

A method of controlling a vibrational transducer, the method comprising: tracking a temperature metric of the vibrational transducer; and controlling a drive signal for the vibrational transducer, whe

An audio signal processing method, and an audio signal processing device for executing the audio signal processing method includes, obtaining an audio signal and compressing the audio signal to generate a first compressed signal; calculating a duration for which a power value of the first compressed signal equals a first power threshold; determining whether the duration exceeds a first time threshold; when the duration exceeds the first time threshold, compressing the first compressed signal to generate a second compressed signal, and amplifying and outputting the second compressed signal.

A valve amplifier (105, 305) comprising an output transformer (110, 310) and a capacitor (210, 410) connected in parallel with a secondary winding (205, 405) of the output transformer (110, 310) Systems (100, 300), methods, and valve amplifier accessories (325, 500, 600) are also provided.

An electronic device includes a housing including at least one opening, a sensor module including at least one sensor, a sound output device including sound output circuitry, a memory, and a processor, wherein the processor may be configured to: determine whether the electronic device is in a state where a foreign substance has entered into the electronic device through the at least one opening, determine whether the electronic device is in a first disposition state using the sensor module based at least on determining that the electronic device is in the state where the foreign substance has entered into the electronic device, and control the electronic device to output a specified acoustic-signal having a specified frequency band and a specified waveform through the sound output device based on the electronic device being in the first disposition state.

A microphone transducer is provided, the microphone transducer comprising a housing and a transducer assembly supported within the housing and defining an internal acoustic space. The transducer assembly includes a magnet assembly, a diaphragm disposed adjacent the magnet assembly and having a front surface and a rear surface, and a coil attached to the rear surface of the diaphragm and capable of moving relative to the magnet assembly in response to acoustic waves impinging on the front surface. The transducer assembly further includes a primary port establishing acoustic communication between the internal acoustic space and an external cavity at least partially within the housing, and a secondary port located at the front surface of the diaphragm.

An apparatus comprising; an amplifier (308) having an amplifier input and an amplifier output; a power stage (PSI) having a power stage input and a power stage output, the power stage input coupled to the amplifier output; and an overcurrent protection circuit (402, 404) coupled to the power stage, the overcurrent protection circuit having an overcurrent threshold control input coupled to the amplifier.

A voice coil driving system includes a magnetic circuit, a voice coil and a driving circuit, and the voice coil is suspended in the air gap and includes a plurality of voice coil sections. A method of driving a voice coil performed by the driving circuit comprises: receiving an audio signal; determining whether the audio signal belongs to a first class signal or a second class signal; when determining that the audio signal belongs to the first class signal, selecting a target voice coil section from the voice coil sections according to the excursion of the voice coil and generating and transmitting a first driving signal to the target voice coil section according to the first class signal; when determining that the audio signal belongs to the second class signal, generating and transmitting second driving signals to the voice coil sections according to the second class signal.

Some noise compensation methods involve: receiving a microphone signal corresponding to ambient noise from a noise source location in or near an audio environment; determining or estimating a listener position in the audio environment; and estimating at least one critical distance, the critical distance being a distance from the noise source location at which the directly propagated sound pressure equals the diffuse-field sound pressure. Some examples involve estimating whether the listener position is within the at least one critical distance, and performing the noise compensation method for the ambient noise based at least in part on the estimation of whether the listener position is within the critical distance.

Aspects of the subject technology relate to electronic devices having speakers. An electronic device may operate the speaker at or near one or more resonance frequencies of the speaker and / or the electronic device. This can allow the electronic device to efficiently eject an occlusion when the speaker is occluded by a fluid or other debris. For example, the electronic device may determine a resonance frequency by obtaining one or more electrical characteristics of an electronic component while the speaker is occluded, determine the resonance frequency based on the obtained electrical characteristic(s), and operate the speaker at a frequency that is based on the resonance frequency to eject the occlusion.

An arithmetic device executes a method for acoustic adjustment including: setting an initial value of a gain value of a preamplifier based on a difference between energies of the test sound source before and after correction by an equalizer to an input sound; amplifying a volume of the test sound source by the preamplifier using the initial value, calculating a loudness value and a clipping occurrence rate of the test sound source corrected by the equalizer, and determining whether calculation results of the loudness value and the clipping occurrence rate are each less than a predetermined threshold; and reducing the initial value of the gain value by a specified value in a case where the calculation result of the loudness value or the clipping occurrence rate is equal to or greater than the predetermined threshold.

A device for estimating the temperature of a loudspeaker's voice coil includes a signal generator, a signal adjuster, an adder, and a temperature estimator. The signal generator generates and outputs an amplified signal to a loudspeaker according to a measurement signal and an audio signal, and senses a voltage and a current of the amplified signal to generate and output a sensory output. The signal adjuster generates and outputs an inverted signal according to the audio signal. The adder adds the sensory output and the inverted signal to generate a blended signal. The temperature estimator obtains an estimated resistance value of the loudspeaker's voice coil according to the blended signal, and generates a temperature signal according to the estimated resistance value, wherein the temperature signal indicates an estimated temperature value of the loudspeaker's voice coil. Additionally, a method for estimating the temperature of the loudspeaker voice coil is provided.

In examples, a device includes audio amplifier circuitry having an input and an output. The output is configured to couple to a speaker. The device also includes sense circuitry coupled to the output and configured to sense a voltage and a current of an analog audio signal from the audio amplifier circuitry. The current indicates a back electromotive force (EMF) of the speaker. The device also includes processing circuitry coupled to the sense circuitry, which is configured to calculate an impedance of a speaker based on the voltage and the current, compare the impedance to a target impedance, and indicate an operational status of the speaker responsive to the comparison.

Audio and haptic signal processing systems and methods are provided. There is provided a method for haptic drive signal generation. The method comprises receiving an input audio signal for driving an audio speaker. The method further comprises deriving, from the audio signal, data components indicative of behaviour of the audio speaker when being driven by the input audio signal, each data component being associated with a respective frequency range. The method further comprises determining a haptic drive component from each data component. A gain is selected to provide to each of the haptic drive components, the gain being selected for each respective frequency range. Each selected gain is applied to the respective haptic drive component to produce gain adjusted haptic drive components. A haptic drive signal is determined from the gain adjusted haptic drive components, the haptic drive signal being so as to produce a mechanical behaviour of the haptic actuator when the haptic drive signal is used to drive the haptic actuator.

A panel audio loudspeaker includes a panel and an actuator attached to a surface of the panel and configured to cause vibration of the panel. The actuator comprises a magnetic coil in thermal communication with the panel. The panel audio loudspeaker further comprises a plurality of electrical sensors electrically coupled to the magnetic coil and configured to output time-varying electrical data for the magnetic coil, and an electronic control module in communication with the magnetic coil and the electrical sensors. The electronic control module is configured to perform operations comprising: providing a current to the magnetic coil; receiving the time-varying electrical data for the magnetic coil; determining an electrical energy provided to the magnetic coil between a first time and a second time; accessing a thermal model of the panel; and determining a change in a panel temperature between the first time and the second time.

Embodiments are directed to a wearable audio device, such as an earbud. The earbud may be configured to detect input using various sensors and structures. For example, the earbud may be configured to detect gestures, physical manipulations, and so forth performed along or on the earbud. In response to the detected inputs, the earbud may be configured to change various outputs, such as an audio output or a haptic output of the device. The earbud may also include a microphone to register voice commands. In some cases, the microphone may be used to control the earbud using the registered voice command in response to one or more detected gestures or physical manipulations.

In at least one embodiment, a speaker system is provided. The speaker system includes at least one speaker, an amplifier, and at least one controller. The at least one speaker system transmits an audio output signal. The amplifier transmits a drive signal to the speaker to transmit the audio output signal in response to the first audio signal. The controller includes: a parameter estimation block that generates speaker system parameters; and a feed-forward processing block that models the loudspeaker system to provide the first audio signal to the amplifier based on the modeled loudspeaker system parameters. The controller includes an adaptive switch that controls the parameter estimation block based on at least one of: a measured characteristic of the drive signal provided by the amplifier, and a measured response associated with at least one characteristic of the at least one speaker.

Acoustic transducer systems and methods of operating acoustic transducer systems are provided. The methods can involve: receiving an input audio signal; determining a position of a diaphragm; determining a correction factor, a motor force factor, a spring error factor, and a system spring factor based at least on the position of the diaphragm; determining a corrected voice coil current based at least on the input audio signal, the correction factor, the spring error factor, and a velocity of the diaphragm; and applying a corrected audio signal to a voice coil fixed to the diaphragm based at least on the corrected voice coil current, wherein the corrected audio signal corrects the input audio signal to compensate for non-linear characteristics of the acoustic transducer system.

Provided is a speaker capable of presuming a cause of failure. A magnet, a vibrator, a voice coil configured to vibrate the vibrator, and a detector insulated from the voice coil and including a closed circuit of a conductor that is fused under a predetermined fusion condition, and the detector is disposed at a position where power is generated due to fluctuation in a magnetic field generated by the voice coil.

An example apparatus includes: audio amplifier circuitry including: audio signal processing circuitry having an output; a register having an output; ultrasonic chirp generator circuitry having an input and an output, the input of the ultrasonic chirp generator circuitry coupled to the output of the register; combination circuitry having a first input, a second input, and an output, the first input of the combination circuitry coupled to the output of the audio signal processing circuitry, the second input of the combination circuitry coupled to the ultrasonic chirp generator circuitry; digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry having an input and an output, the input of the DAC circuitry coupled to the output of the combination circuitry; and an amplifier having an input coupled to the output of the DAC circuitry.

A speaker assembly is provided with a housing having an opening formed through and disposed about an axis. A transducer is mounted to the housing to project sound through the opening. At least one door is mounted for adjustment relative to the axis between a closed position in which a distal end of the at least one door extends over a portion of the opening and an open position. Wherein in the open position the distal end of the at least one door is retracted along the housing to facilitate projection of the sound through the opening. An actuator is coupled to the at least one door to adjust the at least one door between a closed position and an open position.

Disclosed are techniques for acoustic limiters for micro-electrical-mechanical systems (MEMS) microphones and other devices. In an aspect, an acoustic limiter comprises a first housing and a second housing separated by a flexible membrane. The membrane has at least one opening to allow air to flow between the housings. The membrane flexes in response to acoustic pressure within the first housing. If the acoustic pressure is above a threshold value, the membrane flexes a distance into the second housing such that the rigid structure completely or partially blocks the one or more openings through the membrane, which limits airflow speed into the second housing, thus limiting the acoustic pressure within the second housing. In an aspect, the acoustic limiter protects a MEMS microphone element mounted to the second housing, the first housing being the microphone input.

A method for improving sound quality of a speaker includes: performing frequency division on an input signal of the speaker to obtain a first low-frequency input signal and a first high-frequency input signal, where the input signal is a time domain signal; performing transient detection on the first low-frequency input signal to determine whether the first low-frequency input signal is a transient signal; if the first low-frequency input signal is a transient signal, performing signal envelope modulation on the first low-frequency input signal to obtain a second low-frequency input signal; determining an output signal of the speaker based on the second low-frequency input signal and the first high-frequency input signal, where a startup voltage of the second low-frequency input signal is higher than a startup voltage of the first low-frequency input signal, and loudness of the second low-frequency input signal is greater than loudness of the first low-frequency input signal.