Audio Noise Reduction via Synchronized Multi-Device Pooling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Portable electronic devices, such as cellphones, often produce unsatisfactory audio recordings due to limitations in microphone quality, spectral response, noise rejection, and distortion, which can be exacerbated by environmental noise sources.
Innovation Solution
Combining multiple audio recordings from different devices that were recorded simultaneously and in close proximity to generate an improved audio recording, using techniques such as weighted linear combinations and machine learning algorithms, while ensuring user privacy through consent-based data usage and minimizing the contribution of individual recordings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If multiple audio recordings from different devices are combined, then audio recording quality is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple audio recordings from different portable devices into a single improved audio recording. The system merges recordings that were captured simultaneously or near-simultaneously from multiple devices, using signal processing techniques to align and combine the audio signals, thereby achieving higher audio quality than any single device could produce alone.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a cloud-based processing system as an intermediary that receives audio recordings from multiple devices, processes them through synchronized alignment and combining algorithms, and delivers the improved audio recording back to users. This intermediary handles the complex computation and coordination required to merge multiple audio sources effectively.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If multiple audio recordings are combined to improve quality, then noise rejection is improved, but loss of information increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality enhancement by analyzing and processing different portions of the audio signal independently. The system identifies and removes noise from specific time segments and frequency bands while preserving the desired audio content, allowing selective improvement of audio quality without discarding valuable information from any single recording.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses feedback mechanisms where the combined audio recording is compared against the individual source recordings to verify quality improvement. This feedback loop allows the system to adjust processing parameters and ensure that noise reduction does not inadvertently remove valid audio information, maintaining fidelity to the original sound sources.
Data Source
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AI summary
Audio recorded by a cellphone or other portable recording device (e.g., audio recorded as part of a video recording of a play or other event) is often of low quality, due to the limitations of the portable recording device. Multiple audio recordings, made during the same period of time and near the same location, can be combined to generate an improved-quality audio recording of an event. The audio recordings may he accessible to a server that selects the audio recordings and performs the combination. To protect the privacy of persons whose audio is used, more than a minimum number of recordings could be combined and/or no more than a threshold amount of any one recording could he used to generate a combined recording. Additionally, a provided 'clean' recording could include more than a threshold amount of the audio provided by a user or device that requests such a 'clean" recording.