170results about How to "Maximize quality" patented technology

The present invention relates to a telephony device comprising a near-mouth microphone (M1) for picking up an input acoustic signal including the speaker's voice signal (S1) and an unwanted noise signal (N1,D1), a far-mouth microphone (M2) for picking up an unwanted noise signal (N2,D2) in addition to the near-end speaker's voice signal (S2), said speaker's voice signal being at a lower level than the near-mouth microphone, and an orientation sensor for measuring an orientation indication of said mobile device. The telephony device further comprises an audio processing unit comprising an adaptive beamformer (BF) coupled to the near-mouth and far-mouth microphones, including spatial filters for spatially filtering the input signals (z1,z2) delivered by the two microphones, and a spectral post-processor (SPP) for post-processing the signal delivered by the beam-former so as to separate the desired voice signal from the unwanted noise signal so as to deliver the output signal (y).

Methods and apparatuses for improved data transmission control protocols. Acknowledgment streams are used by a sender process to generate various estimates of eligible transmission rates that are fair to other processes competing for bandwidth across a common network. In addition, the acknowledgment streams are used in conjunction with various other standard transmission control protocol metrics to adapt a filter for use on the rate estimates. Additional improvements in throughput may no be had by measuring the overall capacity of the computer network using packet pair dispersion measurements and adaptive network probing. In addition, the methods may be adapted for both packet transmission and video streaming applications.

The present disclosure includes methods and systems for streaming high-performance virtual reality video using adaptive rate allocation. In particular, an adaptive rate allocation system partitions a panorama video into segments or tiles and assigns priorities to each tile or segment based on input (e.g., a viewport of field-of-view) from a user client device. Further, the adaptive rate allocation system streams each tile or segment to the user client device according to the adaptive rate allocation, which maximizes bandwidth efficiency and video quality. In this manner, the adaptive rate allocation system delivers higher quality content to regions in the panorama video where a user is currently looking / most likely to look.

A system and process for controlling the coding bit rate of streaming media data is presented. This coding bit rate control involves dynamically adjusting the coding bit rate to control client buffer duration to prevent the buffer from underflowing, while keeping the average coding bit rate close to the average transmission bit rate of the network (an thus maximizing the quality of the data playback). Using the theory of optimal linear quadratic control, the client buffer duration is kept as close as possible to a target level while still keeping the coding bit rate (and hence the quality) as constant as possible. In addition, a leaky bucket model is incorporated into the control loop so that the changes in buffer duration due to natural variation in the instantaneous coding bit rate are not mistaken for changes in buffer duration due to network congestion.

The invention is suitable for the technical field of intelligent cooking and provides a cooking control method, a cooking control device and an intelligent electric rice cooker. The method comprises the following steps: acquiring cooking information, wherein the cooking information comprises information of food to be cooked, cooking environment information, cooking equipment information and user setting information; calling a corresponding cooking control table according to the acquired information of the food to be cooked and generating a cooking control program according to the cooking control table, the cooking environment information, the cooking equipment information and the user setting information; and sending the cooking control program to cooking equipment to ensure the cooking equipment to cook. Each party related to cooking can be influenced; the cooking information is completed; and a virtual cooking platform is constructed to cook the foods. Therefore, the quality maximization of the cooked food is implemented, the application of the Internet of Things (IOT) in the field of cooking is implemented, the cooking of the food which accords with the Individual requirements of users is implemented and the effect of meeting the requirements of the users to the greatest extent is implemented.

There is a need to prevent two receivers from converging on a state of receiving the same polarization state, fast start receivers, and ensure highly reliable operations. A polarization-multiplexed transmitter previously applies frequency shifts of frequencies +Δf and −Δf to X-polarization and Y-polarization digital information signals to be transmitted. Optical field modulators modulate and polarization-multiplex the signals. As a result, a frequency difference of 2Δf is supplied to X-polarization and Y-polarization components. A polarization diversity coherent optical receiver 215 receives the signal. A frequency estimation portion in a digital signal processing circuit detects a frequency difference signal in both polarization components. This signal is used to a polarization splitting circuit in the digital signal processing circuit.

A system and process for controlling the coding bit rate of streaming media data is presented where a server streams data that exhibits one of a number of coding bit rates supported by the server. Initially, the server chooses the coding bit rate. However, after this startup period, the client provides coding bit rate requests. The server transmits the streaming media data at the most appropriate supported coding bit rate closest to the rate requested. The coding bit rates requested are those estimated to provide a high quality playback of the streaming data while still keeping a decoder buffer of the client filled to a desired level. A leaky bucket model is incorporated so that the changes in buffer duration due to natural variation in the instantaneous coding bit rate are not mistaken for changes in buffer duration due to network congestion.

A method and communication system for selecting a mode for encoding data for transmission in a wireless communication channel between a transmit unit and a receive unit. The data is initially transmitted in an initial mode and the selection of the subsequent mode is based on a selection of first-order and second-order statistical parameters of short-term and long-term quality parameters. Suitable short-term quality parameters include signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINR), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), power level and suitable long-term quality parameters include error rates such as bit error rate (BER) and packet error rate (PER). The method of the invention can be employed in Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), Multiple Input Single Output (MISO), Single Input Single Output (SISO) and Single Input Multiple Output (SIMO) communication systems to make subsequent mode selection faster and more efficient. Furthermore the method can be used in communication systems employing various transmission protocols including OFDMA, FDMA, CDMA, TDMA.

A method, apparatus, and computer program product are disclosed for compression of a 2D-plus-depth representation based on spatial downsampling of an initial depth map. By utilizing the color image accompanying the initial depth map, it is possible to infer structural information that refines and reconstructs the initial depth map out of a heavily subsampled version of the depth map. In the process, no indexing of the exact positions of the subsampled depth values is needed, which leads to very efficient compression. An example method causes segmentation of the color image into a set of super-pixel segments, and causes downsampling of the initial depth map based on the set of super-pixel segments. The method subsequently causes generation and storage of a compressed representation based on the segmented color image and the downsampled depth map. A corresponding apparatus and computer program product are also provided.

A system and process for performing an exponentially weighted moving average on streaming data to establish a moving average bit rate of data units is presented. In general, the system or process computes, on a unit-by-unit basis, the product of the moving average bit rate computed for a data unit immediately prior to a unit under consideration and a first fractional weighting factor, added to the product of the instantaneous bit rate of the data unit under consideration and a second fractional weighting factor, wherein at least one fractional weighting factor is not a constant but instead based on the time between data units.

A television programming recommender is disclosed that selectively obtains feedback information from a user to update one or more profiles associated with the user. Previously obtained implicit and explicit preferences are utilized to selectively focus the collection of feedback information to further update and refine the implicit and explicit preferences. The present invention obtains feedback from a user in a manner that maximizes the value of the obtained information and improves the performance of the television programming recommender. The present invention automatically requests feedback from the user upon the occurrence of predefined criteria. The nature of the requested feedback, and the manner in which the obtained feedback is used to adjust a profile, can vary.

A method of automatic alignment of two directional beams having a known path attenuation, and an antenna gain pattern, for mutual transmission, comprises: determining a beam width between two angles of minimal detectable connection on either side of a beam maximum; then mapping points onto a scan field in a regular pattern, the pattern based on the beam width, such that a beam with the determined beam width is detected once if the beam is in the scan field at all; scanning the first antenna over the mapped scan points; and for each point allowing the second antenna to scan over all of its own set of mapped scan points, thereby providing a coarse alignment of the two antennas to achieve at least a minimal mutual connection. The coarse alignment may be followed by a fine alignment to maximize the signal.

A communication network control method for a communication network including a hub and a plurality of user nodes includes adjusting system parameters to maximize communication data rate and minimize bit error rate given current conditions of the wireless channel, current loading of the network, and user constraints. In particular, the method includes transmitting a first and second frame with first and second control information from the hub to each user node, and transmitting a first and second data burst from each of the user nodes to the hub according to the first and second control information. The start of the time frame of the data burst from each user node arrives simultaneously at the hub. Further, the time frame of the second data burst from each user node arrives immediately following the arrival of the time frame of the first data burst.

A system and process for performing an exponentially weighted moving average on streaming data to establish a moving average bit rate of data units is presented. In general, the system or process computes, on a unit-by-unit basis, the product of the moving average bit rate computed for a data unit immediately prior to a unit under consideration and a first fractional weighting factor, added to the product of the instantaneous bit rate of the data unit under consideration and a second fractional weighting factor, wherein at least one fractional weighting factor is not a constant but instead based on the time between data units.

A marine vessel control system includes a primary marine propulsory mechanism attached to the vessel and an intelligent vessel control system. Also included is an attitude sensor linked with the intelligent vessel control system. An actuating system responding to an output of the intelligent vessel control system is linked with the primary marine propulsory mechanism for adjusting a trust vector of the e primary marine propulsory mechanism.

A system and method for correcting errors and losses occurring during a receiver-driven layered multicast (RLM) of real-time media over a heterogeneous packet network such as the Internet. This is accomplished by augmenting RLM with one or more layers of error correction information. This allows each receiver to separately optimize the quality of received audio and video information by subscribing to at least one error correction layer. Ideally, each source layer in a RLM would have one or more multicasted error correction data streams (i.e., layers) associated therewith. Each of the error correction layers would contain information that can be used to replace lost packets from the associated source layer. More than one error correction layer is proposed as some of the error correction packets contained in the data stream needed to replace the packets lost in the associated source stream may themselves be lost in transmission. A preferred process for generating the error correction streams involves the use of a unique adaptation of the Forward Error Correction (FEC) techniques. This process encodes the transmission data using a linear transform which adds redundant elements. The redundancy permits losses to be corrected because any of the original data elements can be derived from any of the encoded elements. Thus, as long as enough of the encoded data elements are received so as to equal the number of the original data elements, it is possible to derive all the original elements.

Methods and systems for maximizing the quality perceived by the user in a software-based, multi-point video conference or collaboration session between devices that are potentially different (e.g., devices from different vendors, devices with different operating systems, devices on different networks, devices that function as servers, clients or both) and maintaining the quality over time.

A dental irradiation device comprises a first light emitting unit for emitting blue light adapted for light hardening of a dental material. The device further comprises a second light emitting unit and an image sensing unit which are adapted for cooperation with each other for simultaneous illumination and image capturing. The device facilitates hardening of dental materials and provides, inter alia, additional diagnostic functions.

A computer implemented method and system for fully-automatic cardiac functional assessment are provided. Automatic segmentation of a series of ultrasonic cardiac images is performed for delineating an endocardium boundary and an epicardium boundary, in each of the ultrasonic cardiac images using a segmentation algorithm. Multiple acoustic markers are identified on the endocardium boundary on the ultrasonic cardiac images. The acoustic markers are tracked across the ultrasonic cardiac images over multiple cardiac cycles using a tracking algorithm. Multiple cardiac parameters are calculated using the tracked acoustic markers on drift compensated ultrasonic cardiac images. The computer implemented method and system for cardiac functional assessment is fully-automatic without requiring user intervention or inputs.

A communication network control method for a communication network including a hub and a plurality of user nodes includes adjusting system parameters to maximize communication data rate and minimize bit error rate given current conditions of the wireless channel, current loading of the network, and user constraints. In particular, the method includes transmitting a first and second frame with first and second control information from the hub to each user node, and transmitting a first and second respective data burst from each of the user nodes to the hub according to the first and second control information. The first data burst from each user node arrives simultaneously at the hub, and the second data burst from each user node arrives simultaneously at the hub. Further, the second data burst from each user node arrives immediately following the arrival of the first data burst from each user node.

A method and apparatus are provide for managing varying traffic loads in a packetized communication network. At a predefined location, the instantaneous demand for bandwidth required for delivering traffic via a plurality of active channels is compared with the available bandwidth. When the available bandwidth at that pre-defined location is less than the bandwidth required to convey the signals carried along all these active channels, a rate adjusting mechanism is applied to at least one of the active channels, while repeating this check periodically. The rate adjusting mechanism is applied on packetized signals arriving along at least one group of active channels so as to ensure that: a substantially equalized signal quality is maintained for signals delivered via all of the active channels belonging to certain one or more groups of active channels, and the instantaneous overall bandwidth required to convey all the signals arriving at the pre-defined location, is not more than the available instantaneous bandwidth.

It is described an open-loop transmit coil diversity scheme, intended for communication based on magnetic induction, wherein the diversity scheme automatically aligns the transmit coil (110) of a transmitter (100) with the receive coil of a receiver without relying on feedback information from the receiver to the transmitter (100). This may be achieved by having a plurality of coils (110, 120, 130) in the transmitter (100) and / or in the receiver. Each of these coils (110, 120, 130) may be oriented orthogonally with respect to the other coil(s). The optimal coil (130) may be selected by measuring the position angle of the transmitter (100) and / or the receiver by making use of at least one inclinometer (132). For radio communication on the transmitter and / or on the receiver this coil (130) is selected, whose orientation is maximally parallel with the orientation of the corresponding coil on the other side of the radio communication link. Alternatively, if there is only one coil in the transmitter and / or the receiver, it may be possible to spatially adjust the orientation of the transmit coil and / or the receive coil by employing at least one mechanical actuator.

A system for managing delivery of video content. The system includes a controller and one or more players. The controller may be configured to control generation of a plurality of streams containing the video content based upon feedback regarding decoding at least one of the plurality of streams. The one or more players may be configured to select a stream from the plurality of streams, generate decoding statistics for the selected stream, and send the decoding statistics to the controller as the feedback.

A system and method for correcting errors and losses occurring during a receiver-driven layered multicast (RLM) of real-time media over a heterogeneous packet network such as the Internet. This is accomplished by augmenting RLM with one or more layers of error correction information. This allows each receiver to separately optimize the quality of received audio and video information by subscribing to at least one error correction layer. Ideally, each source layer in a RLM would have one or more multicasted error correction data streams (i.e., layers) associated therewith. Each of the error correction layers would contain information that can be used to replace lost packets from the associated source layer. More than one error correction layer is proposed as some of the error correction packets contained in the data stream needed to replace the packets lost in the associated source stream may themselves be lost in transmission. A preferred process for generating the error correction streams involves the use of a unique adaptation of the Forward Error Correction (FEC) techniques. This process encodes the transmission data using a linear transform which adds redundant elements. The redundancy permits losses to be corrected because any of the original data elements can be derived from any of the encoded elements. Thus, as long as enough of the encoded data elements are received so as to equal the number of the original data elements, it is possible to derive all the original elements.

Methods and apparatuses for manufacturing photovoltaic products include an assessment of each product in a production line for suitability, and assigning a grade based either on assessment of the product at that step, comparison to statistical analysis of assessment results of previous products at that step or comparison of previous assessment results of past steps compared to statistical analysis of cumulative assessment results of past products at those steps. Products can be associated into groups for processing as a group based on the grades and downstream equipment can be adjusted based on the grade of the group to bring the group within determined tolerances.

A method for transferring a video stream having a first resolution from a first user equipment to a second user equipment having a larger screen and being capable of offering a plurality of second resolutions which are higher than said first resolution, wherein one or more third user equipments are also receiving video streams through the same network entity which has a limited bandwidth capacity, said method comprising: performing an optimization operation to determine the second resolution to be selected among said plurality of second resolutions at said target user equipment for the video stream, wherein said optimization operation comprises: using utility functions as an input to said optimizing operation, said utility functions having been determined in advance and respectively indicating for each video stream the quality perceived by a user depending on the resolution of the video stream and the allocated data rate, wherein said optimizing operation calculates a combined quality measure based on the utility functions for said video streams, said combined quality measure being calculated such as to find among the plurality of possible resolutions and data rates which could be assigned to said second user equipment, and among the plurality of possible data rates which could be assigned to the video streams received by said third user equipments after the transfer of said video stream, the resolution and data rates to be assigned to the second and third user equipments after the transfer for which the combined quality measure reaches its optimum or extremum; and selecting the second resolution and the data rates for the streams received by said second and third user equipments after said transfer of said video stream in accordance with the result of the optimization procedure such that the combined quality measure reaches its extremum.

A speech compression system capable of encoding a speech signal into a bitstream for subsequent decoding to generate synthesized speech is disclosed. The speech compression system optimizes the bandwidth consumed by the bitstream by balancing the desired average bit rate with the perceptual quality of the reconstructed speech. The speech compression system comprises a full-rate codec, a half-rate codec, a quarter-rate codec and an eighth-rate codec. The codecs are selectively activated based on a rate selection. In addition, the full and half-rate codec are selectively activated based on a type classification. Each codec is selectively activated to encode and decode the speech signals at different bit rates emphasizing different aspects of the speech signal to enhance overall quality of the synthesized speech. The overall quality of the system is strongly related to the excitation. In order to enhance the excitation, the system contains a fixed codebook comprising several subcodebooks. The invention reveals a way to apply a pitch enhancement efficiently and differently for different subcodebooks without using additional bits. The technique is particularly applicable to selectable mode vocoder (SMV) systems.