Wireless Multi-Channel Audio TDMA for Lower Frame Latency
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing wireless multi-channel audio systems suffer from high latency due to simultaneous transmission of audio signals from multiple channels, which is unacceptable in applications requiring low latency, such as stereo audio transmission in concerts.
Innovation Solution
A wireless multi-channel audio system that transmits audio samples from multiple channels in a mixed manner within each time slot, reducing the frame latency by distributing samples across channels, while maintaining the same data rate through repeated slots.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If audio samples from multiple channels are transmitted sequentially in separate time slots, then transmission reliability is maintained, but frame latency increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the audio samples from different channels and distributes them across multiple time slots within a frame. Instead of transmitting all samples from one channel before moving to the next, the system divides and distributes samples from multiple channels (e.g., left and right stereo channels) across different time slots, allowing parallel transmission progress and reducing overall frame latency while maintaining TDMA structure
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new dimension to the transmission structure by organizing audio samples in a two-dimensional grid across time slots and channels. This allows the system to transmit samples from multiple channels simultaneously across different time slots, effectively utilizing the time dimension more efficiently and reducing the total transmission time for a complete frame of multi-channel audio data
2Loss of time
If the transmission rate is increased to reduce latency, then frame latency decreases, but data rate requirements increase system complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal transmission framework that can handle multiple audio channels simultaneously using the same TDMA structure. The system is designed to be multi-functional, supporting any number of channels by distributing their samples across available time slots, thereby reducing latency for each channel without requiring separate dedicated transmission paths or increasing overall system complexity
3Loss of time
If audio samples from multiple channels are transmitted in the same time slot, then frame latency is reduced, but transmission reliability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments samples from different channels and assigns them to different time slots within a frame. This segmentation prevents collision and interference that would occur if multiple channel samples were transmitted simultaneously in the same time slot, thereby maintaining transmission reliability while still reducing overall frame latency through parallel transmission progress across multiple slots
Data Source
AI summary
A wireless multi-channel audio system according to ETSI EN300422 is provided, which has at least one mobile audio data transmitter (30, 40), at least one mobile audio data receiver (50, 60) and a wireless base station (10) which is configured to receive audio data from the at least one audio data transmitter (30, 40) and to transmit audio data to the at least one mobile audio data receiver (50, 60) in a time division multiplex access (TDMA) method. The audio data comprise m audio channels, wherein n audio samples can be transmitted per slot and wherein audio samples from at least two of the m audio channels are transmitted per slot. The following applies: m≥2.