Apple Inc.

Vladan Bajic

Hanchi Chen

Tom-Davy W Saux

Esge Brandt Andersen

Yang Lu

Thomas M Jensen

Sarthak Khanal

Andrew P Bright

Vasu Iyengar

Brian D Clark

John Woodruff

Tyrone T Chen

Andrew E Greenwood

Jakub Mazur

Tony S Verma

Sorin V Dusan

Scott Charles Grinker

Dana C Massie

Jarrett B Lagler

Bruce C Po

Andre L Goldstein

Navneet Gandhi

Victoria Chiu

Daniel S Phillips

An ear cup housing has several reference microphones, an error microphone and a speaker. A processor drives the speaker for acoustic noise cancellation and transparency, by processing the microphone signals, and performs an oversight process by adjusting the reference microphone signals in response to detecting wind noise events and scratch events. In another aspect, the ear cup housing has an outside face that is joined to an inside face by a perimeter and the reference microphones are on the perimeter. Other aspects are also described and claimed.

Headphone with multiple reference microphones ANC and transparency

A method performed by an in-ear headphone that includes a speaker and an internal microphone. The method receives a microphone signal from the internal microphone that indicates a current sound pressure level (SPL) in an ear canal of a user. The current SPL is a result of a control leak from the in-ear headphone into an ambient environment that reduces a SPL in the ear canal between 2 dB and 25 dB at a frequency within a frequency range than if otherwise not present. The method determines an active noise cancellation (ANC) filter based on the microphone signal and generates an anti-noise signal using the ANC filter. The method drives the speaker using the anti-noise signal to reduce the current SPL in the ear canal of the user as much as 25 dB at a frequency within the frequency range.

Feedback acoustic noise cancellation tuning

An audio system has an ambient sound enhancement (ASE) function, in which an against-the-ear audio device having a speaker converts a digitally processed version of an input audio signal into amplified sound. The amplification may be in accordance with a stored hearing profile of the user. The audio system also has an acoustic noise cancellation (ANC) function that may be combined in various ways with the ASE function, and that may be responsive to voice activity detection. Other aspects are also described and claimed.

Headphone acoustic noise cancellation and speaker protection

Headphone with multiple reference microphones and oversight of ANC and transparency

A method performed by an audio system that includes a headset. The method identifies a cushion that is coupled to a headset housing of the headset in which a speaker is integrated therein, produces a reference microphone signal from a reference microphone of the headset, selects an active noise cancellation (ANC) filter based on the identified cushion, filters the reference microphone signal with the ANC filter to produce an anti-noise signal, drives the speaker with the anti-noise signal, in response to driving the speaker, produces an error microphone signal from an error microphone of the headset, and performs an adaptive ANC function to adapt the ANC filter based on the reference microphone signal and the error microphone signal.

Method and system for adaptive audio filters for different headset cushions

An audio system has an ambient sound enhancement function, in which an against-the-ear audio device having a speaker converts a digitally processed version of an input audio signal into sound. The audio system also has an acoustic noise cancellation (ANC) function that may be combined in various ways with the sound enhancement function, and that may be responsive to voice activity detection. Other aspects are also described and claimed.

Ambient sound enhancement and acoustic noise cancellation based on context

A method performed by an audio system that includes a headset with a left headset housing and a right headset housing. The method includes driving a speaker of the left headset housing with an audio signal, determining whether audio howl is present within the left headset housing by comparing spectral content from a first error microphone signal produced by a first error microphone of the left headset housing and spectral content from a second error microphone signal produced by a second error microphone of the right headset housing, and, in response to determining that audio howl is present, filtering the audio signal to mitigate the audio howl.

Method and system for detecting and mitigating audio howl in headsets

A method for audio signal processing of microphone signals of a headphone. An audio signal from a first microphone of a headphone is filtered by an ANC system to produce a first filtered signal. Dynamic range control is performed upon the first filtered signal to produce a first dynamic range adjusted signal that drives a speaker of the headphone. Other aspects are also described and claimed.

Headphone acoustic noise cancellation and speaker protection or dynamic user experience processing

An audio system has an ambient sound enhancement function, in which an against-the-ear audio device having a speaker converts a digitally processed version of an input audio signal into sound. The input audio signal may be amplified where the amplification may be in accordance with a stored hearing profile of the user (personalized ambient sound enhancement.) The audio system also has an acoustic noise cancellation (ANC) function that may be combined in various ways with the sound enhancement function, and that may be responsive to voice activity detection. Other aspects are also described and claimed.

Ambient sound enhancement based on hearing profile and acoustic noise cancellation

Method of wind and noise reduction for headphones starts by receiving acoustic signals from first external microphone included on the outside of earcup's housing. Acoustic signals are received from internal microphone included inside earcup's housing. ANC downlink corrector processes downlink signal to generate echo estimate of speaker signal. First summator removes echo estimate of speaker signal from acoustic signals from internal microphone to generate corrected internal microphone signal. Spectral combiner performs spectral mixing of corrected internal microphone signal with acoustic signals from first external microphone to generate mixed signal. Lower frequency portion of mixed signal includes corresponding lower frequency portion of corrected internal microphone signal, and higher frequency portion of mixed signal includes corresponding higher frequency portion of acoustic signals from first external microphone. Other embodiments are also described.

System and method of wind and noise reduction for a headphone

An anti-noise signal is produced in accordance with an active noise cancellation process (ANC), at an input of a speaker so as to control how much background noise a user can hear. Strength of the anti-noise signal is adjusted gradually, rather than abruptly, in proportion to decreasing or increasing sound pressure level (SPL) of the background noise, during inactivation or activation of the ANC process. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

ANC system with SPL-controlled output

An audio processor has an active noise cancellation (ANC) processor to compute an S-filter, which estimates a transfer function from an earpiece speaker, that is to be worn by a user, to an error microphone. The ANC processor adaptively produces an anti noise signal for reducing ambient noise that can be heard by the user. An adaptive equalization (EQ) processor has an EQ filter controller that adjusts an EQ filter, while audio user content is being filtered in accordance with the EQ filter before being fed to the speaker and then heard by the user. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Adaptive audio equalization for personal listening devices

In one aspect, multiple adaptive W filters and associated adaptive filter controllers are provided that use multiple reference microphone signals to produce multiple, 'component' anti-noise signals. These are gain weighted and summed to produce a single anti-noise signal, which drives an earpiece speaker. The weighting changes based on computed measures of the coherence between content in each reference signal and content in an error signal. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Vladan Bajic