Simultaneous transmission of data and audio signals by means of perceptual coding
First Claim
1. Apparatus for encoding a data signal to be transmitted simultaneously with an audio signal such that said encoded data signal is masked by said audio signal, the apparatus comprising:
- means for monitoring said audio signal to determine a perceptual entropy envelope thereof, said monitoring means generating at least one control signal indicative of said detected perceptual entropy envelope;
means responsive to said at least one control signal for encoding said data signal and for transmitting said encoded data signal at times, frequencies and levels falling within said detected perceptual entropy envelope of said audio signal such that when combined with said audio signal, said transmitted encoded data signal is masked by said audio signal; and
means for combining said audio signal with said transmitted encoded data signal to form a composite signal.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A communication system for simultaneously transmitting data and audio signals via a conventional audio communications channel using perceptual coding techniques Is disclosed. In a preferred embodiment, a first artificial neural network (NN) at an encoder monitors an audio channel to detect "opportunities" to insert the data signal such that the inserted signals are masked by the audio signal, as defined by the "perceptual entropy envelope" of the audio signal. Under the control of the first NN a data signal containing, for example, an ID or serial number, is encoded as one or more whitened direct sequence spread spectrum signals and/or a narrowband FSK data signal and transmitted at the time, frequency and level determined by the first NN such that the data signal is masked by the audio signal. The audio signal is combined with the spread spectrum and/or the FSK data signal(s) to form a composite signal, which is transmitted to one or more receiving locations via the audio channel. A decoder at each of the receiving locations comprises preprocessing circuitry, receiver sync circuitry and FSK decoder circuitry, as well as a second NN, which NN uses pattern and signature recognition techniques to perform block decoding, bit deinterleaving and acquisition confirm functions to recover the encoded ID or serial number.
321 Citations
46 Claims
-
1. Apparatus for encoding a data signal to be transmitted simultaneously with an audio signal such that said encoded data signal is masked by said audio signal, the apparatus comprising:
-
means for monitoring said audio signal to determine a perceptual entropy envelope thereof, said monitoring means generating at least one control signal indicative of said detected perceptual entropy envelope; means responsive to said at least one control signal for encoding said data signal and for transmitting said encoded data signal at times, frequencies and levels falling within said detected perceptual entropy envelope of said audio signal such that when combined with said audio signal, said transmitted encoded data signal is masked by said audio signal; and means for combining said audio signal with said transmitted encoded data signal to form a composite signal. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
-
-
10. Apparatus for recovering an encoded data signal containing an information code transmitted simultaneously with an audio signal such that said data signal is masked by said audio signal, said encoded data signal being combined with said audio signal to form a composite signal, the apparatus comprising:
-
means for receiving said composite signal from an audio channel; means connected to said receiving means for filtering said received composite signal, wherein the passband parameters of said filtering means are dictated by the bandwidth of said audio channel; and means connected to an output of said filtering means for decoding said encoded data signal. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. A communications system for enabling the simultaneous transmission of a data signal and an audio signal via an audio channel such that said data signal is masked by said audio signal, the system comprising:
-
means for monitoring said audio signal to determine a perceptual entropy envelope thereof, said monitoring means generating at least one control signal indicative of said detected perceptual entropy envelope; means responsive to said at least one control signal for encoding said data signal and for transmitting said encoded data signal at times, frequencies and levels falling within said detected perceptual entropy envelope of said audio signal such that when combined with said audio signal, said encoded data signal is masked by said audio signal; means for combining said audio signal and said encoded data signal to form a composite signal; means for transmitting said composite signal via said audio channel; means for receiving said transmitted composite signal from said audio channel; means connected to an output of said receiving means for decoding said encoded data signal of said received composite signal. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
-
-
28. A method of transmitting a data signal simultaneously with an audio signal such that said encoded data signal is masked by said audio signal, the method comprising:
-
monitoring said audio signal to determine a perceptual entropy envelope thereof; generating at least one control signal indicative of said detected perceptual entropy envelope; encoding said data signal in response to said at least one control signal; transmitting said encoded data signal at times, frequencies and levels falling within said detected perceptual entropy envelope of said audio signal such that when combined with said audio signal, said transmitted encoded data signal is masked by said audio signal; and combining said audio signal with said transmitted encoded data signal to form a composite signal. - View Dependent Claims (29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
-
-
37. A method of recovering a data signal containing an information code transmitted simultaneously with an audio signal such that said data signal is masked by said audio signal, wherein prior to transmission said data signal is encoded, said encoded data signal being combined with said audio signal to form a composite signal, the method comprising:
-
receiving said composite signal from an audio channel; filtering said received composite signal, wherein the passband parameters of said filtering are dictated by the bandwidth of said audio channel; and decoding said encoded data signal. - View Dependent Claims (38, 39, 40)
-
-
41. A method of enabling the simultaneous transmission of a data signal and an audio signal via an audio channel such that said data signal is masked by said audio signal, the method comprising:
-
monitoring said audio signal to determine a perceptual entropy envelope thereof, said monitoring means generating at least one control signal indicative of said detected perceptual entropy envelope; in response to said at least one control signal, encoding said data signal and transmitting said encoded data signal at times, frequencies and levels falling within said detected perceptual entropy envelope of said audio signal such that when combined with said audio signal, said transmitted encoded data signal is masked by said audio signal; combining said audio signal and said transmitted encoded data signal to form a composite signal; transmitting said composite signal via said audio channel; receiving said transmitted composite signal from said audio channel; decoding said encoded data signal of said received composite signal to produce a fuzzy logic form of said data signal; and recovering said information code from said fuzzy logic data signal using pattern recognition techniques. - View Dependent Claims (42, 43, 44, 45, 46)
-
Specification