System and method for acoustic management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9978355-B2
Application number	US-201715701188-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 11, 2017
Priority date	Jul 9, 2014
Publication date	May 22, 2018
Grant date	May 22, 2018

Abstract

A system and method for acoustic management that includes improving the sound quality of two or more audio processing modules in an acoustic environment may receive first control parameters from a first audio processing module. Receiving second control parameters from a second audio processing module. An audio processing interaction may be derived between with the first audio processing module and the second audio processing module determined from the first control parameters and the second control parameters. The first control parameters and the second control parameters may be modified responsive to the derived audio processing interaction. The modified first control parameters may be sent to the first audio processing module and the modified second control parameters may be sent to the second audio processing module where the first audio processing module and the second audio processing module may perform any one or more of processing audio captured from an acoustic environment and processing audio to be reproduced in the acoustic environment.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A non-transitory machine-readable medium encoded with machine-executable instructions, wherein execution of the machine-executable instructions is for:
receiving first control parameters from a first audio processing module;
receiving second control parameters from a second audio processing module;
deriving an audio processing interaction between with the first audio processing module and the second audio processing module determined from the first control parameters and the second control parameters;
modifying the first control parameters and the second control parameters responsive to the derived audio processing interaction; and
sending the modified first control parameters to the first audio processing module and the modified second control parameters to the second audio processing module where the first audio processing module and the second audio processing module performs one or more of processing audio captured from an acoustic environment and processing audio to be reproduced in the acoustic environment.

2. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the first control parameters are echo control parameters; the first audio processing module comprises an acoustic echo cancellation module; the second control parameters are noise control parameters; and the second audio processing module comprises an active noise control module.

3. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 2 , where the modified echo control parameters and the modified noise control parameters instruct the acoustic echo cancellation module and the active noise control module to process non-overlapping frequencies.

4. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 2 , where the modified noise control parameters instruct the active noise control module to be responsive to a change in the echo path.

5. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the first control parameters are voice control parameters; the first audio processing module comprises a voice processing module; the second control parameters are the noise control parameters; and the second audio processing module comprises the active noise control module.

6. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 5 , where the modified noise control parameters instruct the active noise control module to be responsive to audio captured from an acoustic environment when voice is not detected in the captured audio.

7. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 5 , where the modified noise control parameters instruct the active noise control module to increase noise reduction at a microphone when the voice processing module is active and to increase noise reduction at user locations when the voice processing module is inactive.

8. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the first control parameters are audio control parameters; the first audio processing module comprises an audio processing module; the second control parameters are the noise control parameters; and the second audio processing module comprises the active noise control module.

9. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 , where the modified noise control parameters instruct the active noise control module to increase noise reduction at each of one or more user locations.

10. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the first control parameters are engine sound enhancement control parameters; the first audio processing module comprises an engine sound enhancement module; the second control parameters are the noise control parameters; and the second audio processing module comprises the active noise control module.

11. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 10 , where the modified noise control parameters instruct the active noise control module to be responsive to audio components not generated in the engine sound enhancement module.

12. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the first control parameters are echo control parameters.

13. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 12 , where the modified echo control parameters instruct an acoustic echo cancellation module.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the second control parameters are noise control parameters.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14 , where the modified noise control parameters instruct an active noise control module.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the first control parameters are echo control parameters and the second control parameters are noise control parameters.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the first control parameters are voice control parameters.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , where the second control parameters are the noise control parameters.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 18 , where the modified noise control parameters instruct an active noise control module to respond to audio captured from an acoustic environment.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 18 , where the modified noise control parameters instruct an active noise control module to increase noise reduction at one or more user locations.

Assignees

• Ontario Inc 2236008

Inventors

• Every Mark Robert
• Hetherington Phillip Alan

Classifications

• G10L21/02

  Speech enhancement, e.g. noise reduction or echo cancellation (reducing echo effects in line transmission systems H04B3/20; echo suppression in hands-free telephones H04M9/08) · CPC title

• G10L25/78

  Detection of presence or absence of voice signals (switching of direction of transmission by voice frequency in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/10) · CPC title

• G10L2021/02082

  the noise being echo, reverberation of the speech · CPC title

• G10K11/175 Primary

  using interference effects; Masking sound · CPC title