Synchronized Audio Transmission Management for Digital Personal Assistants
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional digital personal assistant (DPA) devices struggle to coordinate synchronized audio across multiple devices in an environment, leading to audible delays, directionality issues, and echoes due to physical distance, obstructions, and network latency, resulting in an unsatisfactory listening experience.
Innovation Solution
A method and device that utilize audio test signals to determine transmission characteristics, generate a baseline audio map with compensatory settings, and dynamically adjust audio settings for each DPA device based on user location to manage synchronized audio transmission, minimizing delays and volume variations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If multiple DPA devices transmit audio content simultaneously across different locations, then the system covers a larger area and provides multi-room playback capability, but physical distance and network latency cause audible delays and desynchronization
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by measuring and characterizing audio transmission paths between all DPA devices before actual audio playback occurs. Audio test signals are transmitted to determine propagation delays, and a baseline audio map is generated in advance. This preliminary characterization allows the system to pre-calculate compensatory timing adjustments, so when audio playback begins, the correct synchronization timing is already determined and applied without real-time delays.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring actual audio transmission characteristics and using this information to adjust playback timing. Audio test signals are transmitted to measure actual propagation delays, and this feedback information is used to update the baseline audio map and generate compensatory timing adjustments. The system iteratively refines synchronization based on measured feedback, ensuring accurate audio alignment across all devices.
2Reliability
If audio is transmitted from multiple DPA devices at the same time, then synchronized playback is achieved, but physical obstructions cause echoes and directionality issues
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by measuring and characterizing audio transmission paths between all DPA devices before actual audio playback occurs. Audio test signals are transmitted to determine propagation delays, and a baseline audio map is generated in advance. This preliminary characterization allows the system to pre-calculate compensatory timing adjustments, so when audio playback begins, the correct synchronization timing is already determined and applied without real-time delays.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies parameter changes by adjusting the timing parameters of audio transmission based on measured propagation characteristics. The baseline audio map stores propagation delay information, and the system calculates compensatory timing adjustments for each DPA device based on its distance and position relative to the audio source and listener. These timing parameter adjustments are applied dynamically during playback to compensate for physical obstructions and propagation variations, eliminating echoes and false directionality.
3Measurement precision
If the system measures and adjusts audio transmission characteristics for each location, then audio synchronization accuracy is improved, but the complexity of coordinating multiple devices increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies segmentation by dividing the complex task of audio synchronization into separate, manageable components. First, audio test signals are transmitted to measure individual propagation characteristics between each DPA device pair. Second, a baseline audio map is generated that stores these measured characteristics. Third, compensatory timing adjustments are calculated independently for each device based on the map. This segmentation allows precise measurement and adjustment without overwhelming complexity in real-time coordination.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses copying by creating a baseline audio map that copies and stores the measured propagation characteristics of all audio paths. Instead of continuously measuring and coordinating in real-time, the system creates a reference copy of the acoustic environment's transmission properties. This copied information is then used to calculate timing adjustments for each device, simplifying the coordination process while maintaining measurement precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, device, and computer program product for managing transmission of synchronized audio are provided. The method obtains audio test signal (ATS) data based on ATS broadcasts between a group of digital personal assistant (DPA) devices in an environment. The method determines an audible transmission characteristic of interest (COI), with respect to multiple different combinations of the DPA devices from the group of DPA devices, based on the ATS data. The method generates a baseline audio map (BAM) for the group of DPA devices based on the audible transmission COI. The BAM includes compensatory audio settings for locations in the environment. The method configures, for a select location within the environment, one or more current compensatory audio settings for active DPA devices of the group of DPA devices to manage transmission of synchronized audio content at the select location based, at least in part, on the BAM.