Method and system of varying mechanical vibrations at a microphone

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10674295-B2
Application number	US-201815953382-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 13, 2018
Priority date	Apr 13, 2018
Publication date	Jun 2, 2020
Grant date	Jun 2, 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 a signal for a first speaker, transforming the signal to send to a second speaker or actuator to generate either complementary or opposing vibration forces to those generated by the first speaker, and an accelerometer to measure the amount of vibration caused by the speaker and adjust the transformation applied to the signal to increase or decrease the amount of mechanical coupling, as needed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a microphone;
a first speaker having a first mass, the first speaker configured for receiving a first input signal; and
a second speaker having a second mass, the second speaker configured for receiving a second input signal; and
a signal transformation unit for transforming the first input signal into the second input signal;
wherein:
the first speaker and the second speaker are positioned back to back with the first speaker facing a first direction and the second speaker facing a second direction that is opposite that of the first direction, and
the second speaker is configured so that, in response to the second input signal, the second speaker generates a second vibration force that is in an opposite direction to that of a first vibration force generated by the first speaker and offsets at least part of the first vibration force generated 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.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the mechanical coupling measurement unit measures an amount of vibration 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 second mass is approximately equal to the first mass.

8. 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 one or more transformed input signals for varying an amount of mechanical vibration at the microphone; and
a second speaker configured for receiving one of the one or more transformed input signals and generating a second vibration force;
wherein:
a combination of the first vibration force and the second vibration force varies the amount of mechanical vibration at the microphone.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the combination of the first vibration force and the second vibration force reduces the amount of mechanical vibration at the microphone.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the combination of the first vibration force and the second vibration force increases the amount of mechanical vibration at the microphone.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the second speaker is coneless.

12. The system of claim 8 , further comprising a mechanical vibration measurement unit that measures the amount of mechanical vibration.

13. The system of claim 8 , further comprising a third speaker configured for receiving a second one of the one or more transformed signals 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 at least one microphone and one or more speakers in a speakerphone comprising: receiving an input signal; sending a copy of the input signal to a first speaker; determining if a signal transformation is needed for the input signal to vary an amount of mechanical coupling; upon determining that the signal transformation is needed, performing the 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, the second speaker generates a second vibration force, and a combination of the first vibration force and the second vibration force varies the amount of mechanical coupling between the at least one microphone and the one or more speakers.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising measuring an amount of vibration.

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 varying the amount of mechanical coupling between the at least one microphone and the one or more speakers in the speakerphone includes reducing the amount of mechanical coupling.

18. The method of claim 14 , further comprising determining if the microphone is being used.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein varying the amount of mechanical coupling between the at least one microphone and the one or more speakers in the speakerphone includes increasing the amount of mechanical vibration, if it is determined that the microphone is not being used.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

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

Classifications

• H04R1/025

  Arrangements for fixing loudspeaker transducers, e.g. in a box, furniture · CPC title

• H04R3/04

  for correcting frequency response · 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

• 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