Pleasant sound making device for facility apparatus sound, and pleasant sound making method for facility apparatus sound
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for masking unpleasant sounds from home electrical appliances fail to consider sound phase components and physiological responses, leading to increased unpleasantness, high costs due to required stability in signal processing, and the need for high-performance speakers, which are not always feasible.
Innovation Solution
A pleasant sound making device that uses temporal variation characteristics of natural sounds to filter and process frequencies coinciding with the eigenvalues of the appliance's housing, evaluating these changes based on subjective and physiological responses to generate a pleasant sound waveform for the appliance's operation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If masking sounds are added to eliminate unpleasantness, then unpleasant sounds are difficult to hear, but the phase of the added sound may coincide with noise phase, creating a second noise source
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary anti-action by using active noise control to generate anti-phase sounds before the unpleasant sounds occur. The control unit generates control signals that create sounds with phases opposite to the detected unpleasant sounds, thereby canceling them out in advance rather than adding masking sounds that might coincide in phase and create additional noise.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent converts the harmful vibration sounds and unpleasant noises generated by the air conditioner into beneficial effects. By detecting these unpleasant sounds and generating control signals with opposite phases, the system transforms the harmful acoustic vibrations into a beneficial noise-canceling effect, making the overall sound environment more pleasant while utilizing the detected noise patterns themselves.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If high-accuracy signal processing is performed to emit sounds that reduce unpleasant feeling, then unpleasant feeling is reduced, but high-performance speakers obtained by dedicated acoustic design are required
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the need for high-performance acoustic speakers with an electronic signal processing approach. Instead of relying on dedicated acoustic design and high-performance speaker hardware, the system uses a control unit to generate control signals that are added to the drive signals, substituting complex mechanical/acoustic solutions with electronic signal manipulation that can be implemented with standard components.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the air conditioner's existing speaker and audio system to generate the noise-canceling sounds. Rather than requiring additional high-performance speakers or dedicated acoustic design, the patent makes the existing audio components serve dual purposes: both normal operation and active noise control, thereby reducing device complexity and cost.
3Measurement precision
If microphone with high stability is installed to collect noise signals for real-time processing, then high-accuracy signal processing is achieved, but cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the air conditioner's existing speaker serve multiple functions: it is used both for normal audio output and for generating the control sounds required for active noise control. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for additional microphones or dedicated signal collection hardware, reducing device complexity and cost while still achieving the required measurement and control functions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses its existing audio components (speaker and control unit) to perform both the signal collection and the noise control functions. The control unit that already exists for normal operation is repurposed to generate control signals for active noise control, making the system self-sufficient and eliminating the need for additional expensive hardware components.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively generates an acoustic characteristic deemed pleasant by humans, reduces unpleasant vibrations, and allows for sleep induction and feeling adjustments without the need for high-cost equipment, using existing acoustic characteristics to create a pleasant sound experience.
Implementation Method 1
suppress a portion of a frequency component of the temporal variation characteristic of the frequency of the sound generated in nature, which coincides with or is approximate to an eigenvalue of a housing
Data Source
AI summary
A pleasant sound making device processes temporal variation characteristics in nature such that a frequency component and a peak frequency component in a frequency band which coincide with or are approximate to a housing of an indoor unit provided with a driving part (a fan, a motor, etc.) do not coincide with or are not approximate to the housing, on the basis of subjective view and physiological response evaluations of humans, and operates the driving part with a signal based on the processed waveform.