Harman Becker Automotive Systems Gmbh

Harman International Industries, Inc.

Other

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Apple Inc.

Markus E Christoph

Leander Scholz

Gerhard Pfaffinger

Matthias Kronlachner

Juergen Zollner

Michael Wurm

Nikos Zafeiropoulos

Paul Zukowski

Florian Wolf

Vasudev Kandade Rajan

Georg Spielbauer

Johann Freundorfer

Thomas Hommel

Gerhard Uwe Schmidt

Tim Haulick

Tingli Cai

Franz Lorenz

Stefan Zuckmantel

Peter Perzlmaier

John Barry French

Craig Gunther

Michael Perkmann

Andreas Pfeffer

Florin Negrut

Sunish George J Alumkal

Max Granger

Andreas Frank

Juergen Heinrich Zollner

Peter Perzimaier

Methods and systems are provided for an automatic noise control system. Automatic noise control includes evaluating an amplitude of an acceleration acting on an acceleration sensor and generating a reference signal representative of the amplitude of the acceleration, the acceleration being representative of unwanted noise sound generated by a noise source, filtering the reference signal with a noise control transfer function to generate an anti-noise signal, and converting with a loudspeaker the anti-noise signal into anti-noise sound.

Automatic noise control

Decorrelating an input signal includes allpass filtering to phase shift the first input signal by a phase shift, the allpass filtering comprising filtering with one or more subsequent controllable allpass filter stages, each controllable allpass filter stage having a filter quality and a cut-off frequency. Decorrelating further includes controlling at least one of the filter quality and the cut-off frequency of the controllable allpass filter stages to change over time.

Input signal decorrelation

Methods and systems are provided for automatic noise control. Automatic noise control includes controlling a shadow noise control transfer function based on a shadow error signal and a filtered or unfiltered reference signal, generating the shadow error signal based on a filtered or unfiltered shadow anti-noise signal and an error signal, and substituting the noise control transfer function by the shadow noise control transfer function if the shadow error signal is smaller than the error signal.

An example loudspeaker arrangement includes a seat configured to support a listener sitting in the seat so that a head of the listener is in a listening position; and a loudspeaker array secured to the seat and disposed in a position in front of a backrest of the seat and to the side of the head when the head is in the listening position. The loudspeaker array includes at least one loudspeaker and has a main broadcasting axis representative of a main broadcasting direction, the main broadcasting direction of the loudspeaker array pointing to the head.

Loudspeaker arrangement

Exemplary noise reducing methods and systems are configured to acoustically reproduce two electrical noise reducing signals at two opposing positions in a helmet; to pick up sound at positions in the vicinity of the positions where the noise reducing signals are reproduced; and to generate the two noise reducing signals from error-signals and reference-signals. For each noise reducing signal, the corresponding error-signal is generated from the sound picked-up at the same position where the respective noise reducing signal is reproduced; and the reference-signal is generated from the sound picked-up at the position where the respective other noise reducing signal is reproduced.

Active noise control in a helmet

In at least one embodiment, an audio system for extracting online parameters is provided. The system includes a loudspeaker and at least controller. The loudspeaker transmits an audio signal in a listening environment. The at least one controller includes a signal processing block and an adaptive filter. The signal processing block is programmed to provide a driving signal u(n) to drive the loudspeaker to transmit the audio signal. The adaptive filter is programmed to receive the driving signal and to receive a first varying signal i(n) from the loudspeaker in response to the loudspeaker transmitting audio signal. The adaptive filter is further programmed to generate an admittance curve for the loudspeaker based at least on the driving signal and the first varying signal.

System and method for adaptive control of online extraction of loudspeaker parameters

Exemplary road and engine noise control systems and methods include directly picking up road noise from a structural element of a vehicle to generate a first sense signal representative of the road noise, directly picking up engine noise from an engine of the vehicle to generate a second sense signal representative of the engine noise, and combining the first sense signal and the second sense signal to provide a combination signal representing the combination of the first sense signal and the second sense signal. The systems and methods further include broadband active noise control filtering to generate a filtered combination signal from the combination signal, converting the filtered combination signal provided by the active noise control filtering into anti-noise and radiating the anti-noise to a listening position in an interior of the vehicle. The filtered combination signal is configured so that the anti-noise reduces the noise at the listening position.

Road and engine noise control

At least two closely spaced identical or similar loudspeaker assemblies in a horizontal linear array, each loudspeaker assembly comprising at least two identical or similar loudspeakers pointing in different directions so that the loudspeaker assemblies have adjustable, controllable or steerable directivity characteristics. For example, a control module may drive, adjust, control, or steer the loudspeaker assemblies so that at least one acoustic wave field is generated at least at one listening position.

Loudspeaker array

A speech signal leveling system and method include generating an output signal by applying a frequency-dependent or frequency-independent controllable gain to an input signal, the gain being dependent on a gain control signal, and generating at least one speech detection signal indicative of voice components contained in the input signal. The system and method further include generating the gain control signal based on the input signal and the at least one speech detection signal, controlling the controllable-gain block to amplify or attenuate the input signal to have a predetermined mean or maximum or absolute peak signal level as long as voice components are detected in the input signal.

Speech signal leveling

Sound reduction includes receiving a reference signal corresponding to undesired sound present in the target space, and producing, based on the reference signal, a cancelling signal representative of the undesired sound present in the target space. Sound reduction further includes producing, based on the cancelling signal, sound to destructively interfere with the undesired sound present in the target space, and delaying at least one of the reference signal and the cancelling signal to reduce or compensate for runtime differences between signal paths that transfer the reference signal to the target space.

Feedforward active noise control

Systems and methods are provided for acoustic echo canceling. In one embodiment, a system for canceling acoustic echoes comprises one or more microphones configured to pick up sound generated by a sound source and transferred from the sound source to the one or more microphones via one or more unknown transfer paths having one or more unknown transfer functions, and to provide one or more electrical microphone signals therefrom, one or more adaptive filters for approximating the one or more unknown transfer functions with one or more estimated transfer functions and filtering one or more electrical signals representative of the sound generated by the sound source with the one or more estimated transfer functions to provide one or more estimated signals therefrom, and a microphone calibration block configured to individually attenuate or amplify the one or more electrical microphone signals dependent on the one or more estimated transfer functions.

Acoustic echo canceling

An active noise reducing earphone includes a rigid cup-like shell having an inner surface and an outer surface is provided. The inner surface encompasses a cavity with an opening, and a microphone arrangement is configured to pick up sound with at least one steerable beam-like directivity characteristic, and to provide a first electrical signal that represents the picked-up sound. The earphone further includes an active noise control filter configured to provide, based on the first electrical signal, a second electrical signal, and a speaker disposed in the opening of the cavity and configured to generate sound from the second electrical signal. The active noise control filter has a transfer characteristic that is configured so that noise that travels through the shell from beyond the outer surface to beyond the inner surface is reduced by the sound generated by the speaker.

Active noise reduction earphones

Systems and methods for noise reduction are provided including operations for noisy speech signals, such as speech signals that are subject to speech processing, speech recognition and speech transmission for voice communication purposes. In one embodiment, a system for noise suppression includes an input smoothing filter to smooth magnitudes of the input spectrum, a desired noise shape determination block configured to determine a desired noise shape of the noise spectrum dependent on the smoothed-magnitude input spectrum, and a suppression factors determination block configured to determine a set of suppression factors based on the desired noise shape and the smoothed-magnitude input spectrum. In one embodiment, a filter coefficient determination block is configured to determine noise suppression filter coefficients from the desired noise shape of the noise spectrum. Embodiments are also directed to systems and methods for noise reduction. System configurations and processes are provided for formant detection.

Dynamic noise suppression and operations for noisy speech signals

A loudspeaker arrangement includes an air-tight, rigid, thermo-conductive enclosure () with an aperture () and an outer surface, and a loudspeaker () air-tightly mounted in the aperture () to form a locked acoustic volume within the enclosure (). The arrangement further includes a multiplicity of thermo-conductive fins () attached to or integrated in the enclosure () at the outer surface thereof. The multiplicity of fins () is distributed over the outer surface of the enclosure ().

The present invention provides a method and system with a plurality of voice command devices, wherein each of the voice command devices comprises a processor unit, a transceiver coupled to the processor unit and configured to couple to a network, one or more microphones, each configured to capture an audio signal, and at least one loudspeaker, and wherein the processor unit is configured to detect a speech signal in the captured audio signals; upon detection of a speech signal, transmit directivity information with respect to the one or more microphones to a software as a service, SaaS, provider via the network using the transceiver; and receive directivity information with respect to the plurality of voice command devices from the SaaS provider via the network using the transceiver.

Growing community of inventors

Straubing, Germany

Markus E Christoph