Location based storage and upload of acoustic environment related information

• US 10,490,205 B1
• Filed: 01/26/2017
• Issued: 11/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Iyengar, Vasu, Lindahl, Aram M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Blair, Kile O
• Application Number:
  US15/417,038
• Time in Patent Office: 1,034 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2021/02082 the noise being echo, reverberation of the speech
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0224 Processing in the time domain
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/54 for retrieval
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2227/007 Electronic adaptation of audio signals to reverberation of the listening space for PA
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/005 for combining the signals of two or more microphones specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407
• 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 7/301 Automatic calibration of stereophonic sound system, e.g. with test microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/305 Electronic adaptation of stereophonic audio signals to reverberation of the listening space H04S7/301 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for storing and reusing previously generated/calculated acoustic environment data. By reusing acoustic environment data, the systems and methods described herein may avoid the increased overhead in generating/calculating acoustic environment data for a location when this data has already been generated and is likely accurate. In particular, the time and complexity involved in determining reverberation/echo levels, noise levels, and noise types may be avoided when this information is available in storage. This previously stored acoustic environment data may not be limited to data generated/calculated by the same audio device. Instead, in some embodiments an audio device may access a centralized repository to leverage acoustic environment data generated/calculated by other audio devices.

Claims

1. An acoustic environment server comprising:

a. a database of stored, acoustic environment data;

b. a wireless network interface to communicate wirelessly with a plurality of audio devices wherein each of the audio devices has a respective loudspeaker and a respective microphone;

c. a processor; and

d. memory having stored therein instructions that when executed by the processor

i. receive a query for acoustic environment data via the wireless network interface from a querying one of the audio devices,

ii. determine whether an age of a queried acoustic environment data in the database is greater than a threshold value,

iii. in response to the determination that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is above the threshold value, request and receive new acoustic environment data via the wireless network interface from the querying one of the audio devices, wherein the new acoustic environment data was determined based on audio data captured using the respective microphone in the querying one of the audio devices,

iv. store the new acoustic environment data in the database along with a current time and a current location of the querying one of the audio devices when the audio data used for determining the acoustic environment data was captured, and

v. in response to the determination that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is less than or equal to the threshold value, serve the queried acoustic environment data to the querying one of the audio devices.

2. The acoustic environment server of claim 1 in combination with the plurality of audio devices, wherein one of the audio devices comprises a loudspeaker array.

3. The acoustic environment server of claim 1 wherein the memory has stored therein instructions that when executed by the processor determine that the queried acoustic environment data has a matching location in the database that matches the current location of the querying one of the audio devices, and serve the querying one of the audio devices with the queried, acoustic environment data that is associated with the matching location in response to the determination that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is less than or equal to the threshold value.

4. The acoustic environment server of claim 3 in combination with the plurality of audio devices, wherein each of the audio devices comprises a separate loudspeaker cabinet.

5. The acoustic environment server of claim 3 wherein the memory has stored therein instructions that when executed by the processor, in response to failing to find a stored location in the database that matches the current location of the querying one of the audio devices, receive the new acoustic environment data from the querying one of the audio devices, and store into the database the new acoustic environment data along with the current location of the querying one of the audio devices.

6. The acoustic environment server of claim 1 in combination with the plurality of audio devices, wherein each of the audio devices comprises a separate loudspeaker cabinet.

7. The acoustic environment server of claim 1 in combination with the plurality of audio devices, wherein each audio device comprises a loudspeaker array that includes a plurality of transducers housed in a loudspeaker cabinet.

8. The acoustic environment server of claim 1, wherein the received acoustic environment data includes a reverberation level of the querying one of the audio devices, wherein the reverberation level is determined by measuring a reverberation time of the current location of the querying one of the audio devices.

9. The acoustic environment server of claim 1 wherein the received acoustic environment data further includes a noise level at the current location of the querying one of the audio devices and a noise type at the current location of the querying one of the audio devices.

10. An article of manufacture, comprising:

a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium that stores instructions which, when executed by a processor in a computing device,

i. receive a query for acoustic environment data from a querying one of a plurality of audio devices,

ii. determine whether an age of a queried acoustic environment data in a database of stored acoustic environment data is greater than a threshold value,

iii. in response to the determination that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is above the threshold value, request and receive new acoustic environment data from the querying one of the audio devices, wherein the new acoustic environment data was determined based on audio data captured using a respective microphone in the querying one of the audio devices,

iv. store the new acoustic environment data in the database along with a current time and a current location of the querying one of the audio devices when the audio data used for determining the acoustic environment data was captured, and

v. in response to the determination that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is less than or equal to the threshold value, serve the queried acoustic environment data to the querying one of the audio devices.

11. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein one of the audio devices comprises a loudspeaker array.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the loudspeaker array includes a plurality of transducers housed in a loudspeaker cabinet.

13. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the non-transitory machine-readable storage medium includes further instructions that when executed by the processor:

determine that the queried acoustic environment data has a matching location in the database that matches the current location of the querying one of the audio devices, and serve the querying one of the audio devices with the queried acoustic environment data that is associated with the matching location in response to the determination that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is less than or equal to the threshold value.

14. The article of manufacture of claim 13, wherein each of the audio devices comprises a separate loudspeaker cabinet.

15. The article of manufacture of claim 13, wherein the non-transitory machine-readable storage medium includes further instructions that when executed by the processor:

in response to failing to find a matching location in the database that matches the current location of the querying one of the audio devices, receive the new acoustic environment data from the querying one of the audio devices, and store into the database the new acoustic environment data along with the current location of the querying one of the audio devices.

16. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein each of the audio devices comprises a separate loudspeaker cabinet.

17. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the received acoustic environment data includes a reverberation level of the querying one of the audio devices, wherein the reverberation level is determined by measuring a reverberation time of the current location of the querying one of the audio devices, and wherein the reverberation level is used to adapt an echo cancellation system within the querying one of the audio devices.

18. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the received acoustic environment data further includes a noise level at the current location of the querying one of the audio devices and a noise type at the current location of the querying one of the audio devices.

19. A method for processing an audio signal, comprising:

receiving a query for acoustic environment data from a querying one of a plurality of audio devices,

determining whether an age of a queried acoustic environment data in a database of stored acoustic environment data is greater than a threshold value,

in response to determining that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is above the threshold value, requesting and receiving new acoustic environment data from the querying one of the audio devices wherein the new acoustic environment data was determined based on audio data captured using a respective microphone in the querying one of the audio devices;

storing the new acoustic environment data in the database along with a current time and a current location of the querying one of the audio devices when the audio data used for determining the acoustic environment data was captured, and

in response to determining that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is less than or equal to the threshold value, serving the queried acoustic environment data to the querying one of the audio devices.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

determine whether the queried acoustic environment data has a matching location in the database that matches the current location of the querying one of the audio devices; and

one of

i) in response to finding a matching location in the database that matches the current location of the querying one of the audio devices, serving the querying one of the audio devices with the queried acoustic environment data that is associated with the matching location in response to determining that the age of the queried acoustic environment data is less than or equal to the threshold value, or

ii) in response to failing to find a matching location in the database that matches the current location of the querying one of the audio devices, receiving the new acoustic environment data from the querying one of the audio devices, and storing into the database the new acoustic environment data along with the current time and the current location of the querying one of the audio devices.