Method and system of varying mechanical vibrations at a microphone

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10575110-B2
Application number	US-201916365616-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 26, 2019
Priority date	Apr 13, 2018
Publication date	Feb 25, 2020
Grant date	Feb 25, 2020

Abstract

An improved method and system for varying an amount of mechanical coupling in a speakerphone is disclosed. Solutions and implementations provided vary the amount of mechanical coupling between one or more speakers and one or more microphones of the speakerphone to generate high-quality sounds. Implementations include receiving an input signal, sending a copy of the input signal to a first speaker, performing a signal transformation on the input signal to produce a transformed input signal, and transmitting the transformed input signal to a second speaker, where the first speaker generates a first vibration force in response to the input signal, and the second speaker generates a second vibration force in response to the transformed input signal, the second vibration force being in an opposite direction to that of the first vibration force and offsetting at least part of the first vibration force.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a microphone;
a first speaker configured for receiving a first input signal and producing a first vibration force;
a signal transformation unit configured for transforming the first input signal into a second input signal;
a second speaker configured for receiving the second input signal; and
a coupling block positioned between the first speaker and the second speaker;
wherein:
the first speaker faces a first direction and the second speaker faces a second direction opposite that of the first direction, and
the second speaker is configured to be responsive to the second input signal to produce a second vibration force that is in an opposite direction to that of the first vibration force produced by the first speaker and the second vibration force offsets at least part of the first vibration force produced by the first speaker.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the signal transformation unit is a transform function.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the signal transformation unit is a low-pass filter.

4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a mechanical coupling measurement unit for measuring an amount of vibration at the microphone.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the amount of vibration at the microphone is caused by the first and the second speakers.

6. The system of claim 4 , wherein the mechanical coupling measurement unit is an accelerometer.

7. The system of claim 4 , wherein the first speaker has a first mass, the second speaker has a second mass, and the second mass is approximately equal to the first mass.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the coupling block is a rigid block.

9. A system comprising:
a microphone;
a first speaker configured for receiving a first input signal and generating a first vibration force;
a signal transformation unit receiving the first input signal and performing a signal transformation thereon to produce a transformed input signal for varying an amount of mechanical vibration at the microphone; and
a second speaker configured for receiving the transformed input signal and generating a second vibration force;
wherein the second vibration force is in an opposite direction to that of the first vibration force and offsets at least part of the first vibration force to vary the amount of mechanical vibration at the microphone.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the combination of the first vibration force and the second vibration force reduces the amount of mechanical vibration at the microphone.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the second speaker is coneless.

12. The system of claim 9 , further comprising a mechanical vibration measurement unit that measures the amount of mechanical vibration.

13. The system of claim 9 , further comprising a third speaker configured for receiving another transformed input signal and generating a third vibration force, wherein the combination of the first vibration force, the second vibration force, and the third vibration force varies the amount of mechanical vibration at the microphone.

14. A method for varying an amount of mechanical coupling between a microphone and two speakers in a speakerphone comprising:
receiving an input signal;
sending a copy of the input signal to a first speaker;
performing a signal transformation on the input signal to produce a transformed input signal; and
transmitting the transformed input signal to a second speaker;
wherein:
the first speaker generates a first vibration force in response to the input signal, and
the second speaker generates a second vibration force in response to the transformed input signal, the second vibration force being in an opposite direction to that of the first vibration force and offsetting at least part of the first vibration force.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising measuring an amount of vibration caused by the first and the second speakers.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein performing the signal transformation comprises transforming the input signal based at least in part on the amount of measured vibration.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein offsetting at least part of the first vibration force reduces the amount of mechanical coupling.

18. The method of claim 14 , wherein performing the signal transformation on the input signal comprises applying a transform function to the input signal.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the transform function is a non-linear transform function.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Kelloniemi Antti Pekka
• Cutler Ross Garrett
• Malladi Sailaja
• Raussi Tommi Antero

Classifications

• H04M9/08

  Two-way loud-speaking telephone systems with means for conditioning the signal, e.g. for suppressing echoes for one or both directions of traffic · CPC title

• H04M1/035

  Improving the acoustic characteristics by means of constructional features of the housing, e.g. ribs, walls, resonating chambers or cavities · CPC title

• H04R2499/11

  Transducers incorporated or for use in hand-held devices, e.g. mobile phones, PDA's, camera's · CPC title

• H04R29/002 Primary

  Loudspeaker arrays · CPC title

• H04M1/62

  Constructional arrangements · CPC title