Privacy-preserving energy-efficient speakers for personal sound

• US 10,134,416 B2
• Filed: 05/11/2015
• Issued: 11/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Florencio, Dinei, Zhang, Zhengyou
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhang, Leshui
• Application Number:
  US14/709,453
• Publication Number:
  US 20160336022A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,289 Days
• Field of Search: 381 1, 381 15, 381 16, 381 731, 381 77- 85, 381 947, 381 711- 7114, 381 941- 949, 700 94, 37940601-40616
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/002 Devices for damping, suppressing, obstructing or conducting sound in acoustic devices G10K1/06 - G10K1/10 take precedence; for electro-mechanical transducers for communication H04R3/002
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0272 Voice signal separating
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2217/03 Parametric transducers where sound is generated or captured by the acoustic demodulation of amplitude modulated ultrasonic waves
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 27/00 Public address systems circuits for preventing acoustic reaction H04R3/02; circuits for distributing signals to loudspeakers H04R3/12; monitoring or testing arrangements for public address systems H04R29/007; amplifiers H03F
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/12 for distributing signals to two or more loudspeakers specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2420/01 Enhancing the perception of the sound image or of the spatial distribution using head related transfer functions [HRTF's] or equivalents thereof, e.g. interaural time difference [ITD] or interaural level difference [ILD]

Abstract

The privacy-preserving energy-efficient speaker implementations described herein improve user privacy while a user is listening to audio and can reduce the energy necessary to output the audio. This can be done by using parametric speakers and/or traditional loud-speakers. Signal splitting and masking can be used to improve user privacy. Additionally, a signal modulation technique which significantly reduces power requirements to output an audio signal, especially in the context of using parametric speakers, can also be employed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented process for maintaining privacy while a user is listening to audio, comprising:

dividing an audio signal representative of sound to be heard by the ear of the user into multiple complementary parts; and

sending one or more parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal to a first channel, while sending one or more other parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal to channels other than the first channel in a manner so that sound generated by the one or more parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal and the one or more other parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal arrive at the ear of the user at substantially the same time,

wherein the one or more parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal sent to the first channel are sent to one or more parametric speakers, and

wherein the one or more parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal that are sent to the one or more parametric speakers are sent by modulating ultrasonic carrier signals by the one or more parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal added with a low frequency signal with a minimal spectral power above a lowest frequency that a human can hear.

2. The computer-implemented process of claim 1, wherein the dividing of the audio signal further comprises:

for each frame of the audio signal;

computing which part of the frame is below a maximum power that can be sent to a given channel;

adding a power spectrum for frequencies in the part of the frame until the maximum power is reached for that frame; and

sending the part with the added power spectrum of the frame for the frequencies as the one or more parts of the multiple complementary parts in the frame of the audio signal to the given channel as the first channel, and

sending a rest of the frequency components of the frame of the audio signal as the one or more other parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal that are not sent to the given channel, to one or more of the other channels so that the one or more parts and the one or more other parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal arrive at the ear of the user at substantially the same time.

3. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 wherein the one or more other parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal sent to channels other than the first channel are sent to one or more loudspeakers.

4. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, wherein the modulated audio signal with the low frequency signal added reduces the energy consumption of the one or more parametric speakers to output the modulated audio signal with the low frequency signal added.

5. The computer-implemented process of claim 1, wherein the modulated signals are delayed based upon computed delay coefficients so as to arrive at the ear of the user at substantially the same time.

6. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 wherein high frequency parts of the audio signal are sent via one or more channels to the one or more parametric speakers.

7. The computer-implemented process of claim 1, further comprising outputting a masking sound directed to locations other than the ear of the user.

8. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 wherein the one or more other parts of parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal sent to the channels other than the first channel are sent to one or more loudspeakers.

9. The computer-implemented process of claim 8 wherein the one or more other parts of the multiple complementary parts of the audio signal sent to the one or more loudspeakers are low frequency parts of the audio signal.

10. The computer-implemented process of claim 1, further comprising splitting the audio signal so that particular phonemes in speech are particularly distorted when sent to a particular channel.

11. A computer-implemented process for modulating a signal in order to reduce energy consumption of a transducer comprising:

adding a low frequency signal with an unsubstantial spectral power above a lowest frequency that a human can hear to an audio signal to be transmitted in a manner so as to reduce energy required to output the audio signal, wherein the audio signal is representative of sound to be heard by a user; and

modulating carrier signals by the audio signal with the low frequency signal added; and

outputting the modulated audio signal with the low frequency signal added by the transducer in order to reduce the energy consumption of the transducer.

12. The computer-implemented process of claim 11 wherein the carrier signals are ultrasonic carrier signals.

13. The computer-implemented process of claim 11 wherein the carrier signals are radio frequency signals and the modulation process uses amplitude modulation, with or without carrier suppression.

14. The computer-implemented process of claim 11 wherein adding a low frequency signal to the audio signal to be transmitted further comprises:

for one or more segments of the audio signal,

finding a first negative amplitude sample in a segment of the audio signal;

adding a window or a positive signal centered around the most negative amplitude sample of the audio signal to reduce the number of negative samples in the segment and to determine an envelope for the modulated carrier signals.

15. The computer-implemented process of claim 14 wherein the window signal is a Hanning window signal.

16. The computer-implemented process of claim 14 wherein the window signal is an asymmetric window signal.

17. The computer-implemented process of claim 11 wherein adding a low frequency signal to the audio signal to be transmitted further comprises:

using a rectifier to rectify any negative portion of the audio signal,

using a low pass filter on the rectified audio signal to determine an envelope for the modulated carrier signals; and

adding a low frequency signal to the audio signals so that the low frequency signal pushes the envelope to be always positive or within a determined desired range.

18. A system for providing audio to a user while maintaining privacy, comprising:

a computing device;

a computer program comprising program modules executable by the computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to,

divide an audio signal into two complementary parts, a first part and a second part;

output the first part of the audio signal using a parametric speaker, comprising;

generating ultrasonic carrier signals;

adding a low frequency signal with a minimal spectral power above a lowest frequency that a human can hear to the first part of the audio signal;

generating modulated signals by modulating the ultrasonic carrier signals by the first part of the audio signal added with the low frequency signal;

transmitting the generated modulated signals to transducers of the parametric speaker and causing the transducers to form an ultrasonic beam that has a main lobe directed towards the ear of the user; and

output the second part of the audio signal using one or more loudspeakers so that the sound output by the one or more loudspeakers is directed toward the ear of the user.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein a location of the user'"'"'s ear is determined by using head tracking.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein two parametric speakers are used to output the first part of the audio signal, one directed at the left ear of the user and one directed at the right ear of the user, and wherein the shape of the user'"'"'s head is used to separate sound sent to the left ear and the right ear of the user from the two parametric speakers.