Dynamic sweet spot tracking

• US 20070116306A1
• Filed: 12/13/2004
• Published: 05/24/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Kovacs, Ernoe, Riedel, Matthias, Hamdan, Amen
• Granted Patent: US 8,472,632 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/303
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/00 Circuits for transducers , loudspeakers or microphones
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/301 Automatic calibration of stereophonic sound system, e.g. with test microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/303 Tracking of listener position or orientation

Abstract

An audio system with a dynamic sound field adaptation to follow a listeners position. The audio system includes a relative location determination mechanism for determining the relative positions of at least all sound emitting components of the audio system with respect to each other, a personal device detector for detecting a personal device belonging to a user, a personal device position tracking mechanism for tracking the position of the personal device, and a re-calibration mechanism for re-calibrating the sound field such that the sweet spot of the sound field is placed at the current position of the personal device.

Claims

1-12. -12. (canceled)

13. Audio system providing a dynamic sound field adaptation to follow a listeners position, the audio system comprising:

a relative location determination means for determining relative positions of at least all sound emitting components of the audio system with respect to each other;

a personal device detection means for detecting a personal device belonging to a user;

a personal device position tracking means for tracking a position of a personal device; and

a re-calibration means for re-calibrating the sound field such that a sweet spot of the sound field is placed at a current position of the personal device.

14. Audio system according to claim 13, wherein

the relative location determination means, the personal device detection means, the personal device position tracking means, and the re-calibration means each are configured to communicate via a network.

15. Audio system according to claim 14, wherein

the network is at least partly implemented in a form of a wireless communication network.

16. Audio system according to claim 14, wherein

that the network is at least partly implemented in a form of a wired communication network.

17. Audio system according to claim 14, wherein

each physically distinguishable unit of the audio system includes membership attribute data representing its identity.

18. Audio system according to claim 13, further comprising:

an arbitration means for arbitrating between different requirements set by more than one personal device being detected by the personal device detection means according to a set of criteria.

19. Audio system according to claim 18, wherein

one of the criteria is to position the sweet spot for covering a maximum number of personal device positions as tracked by the personal device position tracking means.

20. Audio system according to claim 18, wherein

one of the criteria is to position the sweet spot to a position of a preferred personal device as tracked by the personal device position tracking means.

21. Audio system according to claim 13, further comprising:

physical item detection means for detecting acoustically interfering items around the sound source.