DYNAMIC CALIBRATION OF AN AUDIO SYSTEM

• US 20150208184A1
• Filed: 01/18/2014
• Published: 07/23/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tan, Desney S., Morris, Daniel, Wilson, Andrew D., Rui, Yong, Raghuvanshi, Nikunj, Wing, Jeannette M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,729,984 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72442 for playing music files
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2227/005 Audio distribution systems for home, i.e. multi-room use
• 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 29/00 Monitoring arrangements; Testing arrangements for hearing aids H04R25/30; detection of loudspeaker connection H04R5/04; sound-field adaptation dependent on speaker detection H04S7/308
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/04 for correcting frequency response
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 5/04 Circuit arrangements, e.g. for selective connection of amplifier inputs/outputs to loudspeakers, for loudspeaker detection, or for adaptation of settings to personal preferences or hearing impairments combinations of amplifiers H03F3/68; stereophonic systems H04S
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/301 Automatic calibration of stereophonic sound system, e.g. with test microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds

Abstract

Technologies pertaining to calibration of filters of an audio system are described herein. A mobile computing device is configured to compute values for respective filters, such as equalizer filters, and transmit the values to a receiver device in the audio system. The receiver device causes audio to be emitted from a speaker based upon the values for the filters.

Claims

1. A method executed at a mobile computing device, comprising:

receiving an audio signal output by a microphone of the mobile computing device, the audio signal being representative of audio emitted from a speaker in an audio system;

computing a value of a filter based upon the audio signal received from the microphone; and

outputting a signal that is configured to cause the speaker to emit the audio based upon the value of the filter.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the audio system comprises a receiver device, and wherein the signal output by the mobile computing device is transmitted to the receiver device of the audio system, the signal comprising the value of the filter.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein outputting the signal comprises transmitting the signal to the speaker in the audio system, the signal being a drive signal that causes the speaker to emit the audio based upon the value of the filter.

4. The method of claim 1, the mobile computing device being one of a mobile telephone, a tablet computing device, or a phablet computing device.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving data that is indicative of a location of the mobile computing device relative to a location of the speaker; and

computing the value of the filter based upon the location of the mobile computing device relative to the location of the speaker, wherein the value of the filter is computed to cause the speaker to output spatialized audio.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the value of the filter is indicative of one of amplification or attenuation of energy in a particular frequency band from amongst a plurality of frequency bands.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein computing the value of the filter comprises:

extracting a feature set from the audio signal;

identifying a plurality of frequencies in the audio signal based upon the feature set extracted from the audio signal, a frequency band comprising the frequencies;

identifying respective amplitudes corresponding to the frequencies;

computing a value for the frequency band based upon the amplitudes corresponding to the frequencies; and

computing the value of the filter based upon the value for the frequency band.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving a desired value for the frequency band;

comparing the desired value for the frequency band with the computed value for the frequency band; and

computing the value of the filter based upon the comparing of the desired value for the frequency band and the computed value for the frequency band.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein receiving the desired value for the frequency band comprises:

transmitting the feature set by way of a network connection to a computing device; and

responsive to the transmitting of the features, receiving, from the computing device and by way of the network connection, the desired value for the frequency band.

10. The method of claim 1, the audio being a musical piece, the receiving, computing, and transmitting performed dynamically and in real-time as the musical piece is output by the speaker.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting a second signal to a speaker of the mobile computing device, the second signal causing the speaker of the mobile computing device to emit second audio that supplements the audio output by the speaker of the audio system.

12. A mobile computing device, comprising:

a microphone;

a processor; and

a memory that comprises a plurality of components that are executed by the processor, the plurality of components comprising;

a feature extractor component that extracts features from an audio signal output by the microphone, the audio signal being representative of audio emitted from a speaker of an audio system; and

a value determiner component that determines a value for a filter, the mobile computing device configured to output a signal that causes the speaker to emit the audio based upon the value for the filter determined by the value determiner component.

13. The mobile computing device of claim 12 being a mobile telephone.

14. The mobile computing device of claim 12, wherein the value for the filter corresponds to one of an attenuation or an amplification of energy in a frequency band.

15. The mobile computing device of claim 12, wherein the feature extractor component, based upon the features, identifies amplitudes of frequencies in a frequency band, the value determiner component determines the value for the filter based upon the amplitudes of the frequencies in the frequency band.

16. The mobile computing device of claim 15, wherein the plurality of components further comprises a response calculator component that:

receives data that is indicative of desired amplitudes of frequencies in the frequency band; and

computes a frequency response for the audio system based upon the audio signal output by the microphone and the data that is indicative of the desired amplitudes of frequencies in the frequency band.

17. The mobile computing device of the claim 12, wherein the mobile computing device is configured to generate a map of an environment based upon the features extracted from the audio signal.

18. The mobile computing device of claim 12, wherein the mobile computing device outputs the signal to a receiver device of an audio system, the signal comprising the value of the filter, the filter being an equalizer filter.

19. The mobile computing device of claim 12, wherein the plurality of components further comprise a supplementer component that is configured to transmit a second signal to a second speaker on the mobile computing device, the second signal configured to cause the speaker to output second audio that supplements the audio emitted by the speaker.

20. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform acts comprising:

receiving a first audio signal from a microphone of a mobile computing device, the first audio signal representative of music emitted by a speaker of an audio system;

computing, based upon the first audio signal, a first frequency spectrum of the first audio signal;

receiving a second frequency spectrum of a second audio signal, the second audio signal representative of the music as desirably delivered to a user;

computing a frequency response for the audio system based upon the first frequency spectrum and the second frequency spectrum; and

transmitting a signal to a receiver device of the audio system based upon the frequency response for the audio system, the signal causing the receiver device to one of amplify or attenuate frequencies in the music emitted by the speaker.