Audio Source Directivity Equalization for Clear Speech Capture
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing audio devices struggle to effectively focus on particular sounds due to microphone placement distance, leading to difficulties in hearing user speech or ambient sounds, especially in noisy environments.
Innovation Solution
An audio enhancer system that utilizes a directivity analyzer and equalizer to adjust audio frequencies based on the directivity of the audio source, simulating microphone movement to enhance sound capture and clarity, by generating equalizer settings that emulate microphone positioning relative to a zoom target.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If microphones are placed further away from the user, then more ambient sounds are captured, but user speech becomes softer and harder to hear
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different processing to different frequency components of the audio signal. The equalizer adjusts specific frequency bands to enhance user speech while maintaining ambient sound capture, creating local quality enhancement rather than uniform processing across all frequencies.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the frequency response parameters of the audio signal by applying equalizer settings. These parameter changes boost the intelligibility of user speech in specific frequency ranges while preserving the overall ambient sound environment captured by distant microphones.
2Measurement precision
If microphones are placed closer to the user, then user speech is captured more clearly, but ambient sounds are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The audio processing system performs multiple functions simultaneously: it enhances user speech clarity while preserving ambient sound capture. The equalizer and directivity analyzer work together to achieve both goals that would otherwise require different microphone placements.
3Measurement precision
If equalizer settings are adjusted to enhance specific frequencies, then audio clarity improves, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses the directivity analyzer to automatically determine appropriate equalizer settings based on the detected audio source characteristics. This self-service approach eliminates the need for manual configuration and reduces the complexity burden on the user, while the system autonomously optimizes audio clarity.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2A~2B
Figure 3
AI summary
A device includes a memory configured to store directivity data of one or more audio sources corresponding to one or more input audio signals. The device also includes one or more processors configured to determine one or more equalizer settings based at least in part on the directivity data. The one or more processors are also configured to generate, based on the equalizer settings, one or more output audio signals that correspond to a psychoacoustic enhanced version of the one or more input audio signals.