Systems and methods for determining the condition of multiple microphones

• US 9,432,787 B2
• Filed: 02/09/2016
• Issued: 08/30/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Krishnaswamy, Arvindh, Yeh, David T., Merimaa, Juha O., Ramprashad, Sean A.
• Primary Examiner(s): HUBER, PAUL W
• Application Number:
  US15/019,521
• Publication Number:
  US 20160219386A1
• Time in Patent Office: 203 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2499/11 Transducers incorporated or for use in hand-held devices, e.g. mobile phones, PDA's, camera's
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 29/004 for microphones H04R29/007 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 29/005 Microphone arrays
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/00 Circuits for transducers , loudspeakers or microphones

Abstract

Systems and methods for determining the operating condition of multiple microphones of an electronic device are disclosed. A system can include a plurality of microphones operative to receive signals, a microphone condition detector, and a plurality of microphone condition determination sources. The microphone condition detector can determine a condition for each of the plurality of microphones by using the received signals and accessing at least one microphone condition determination source.

Claims

1. A method for determining the operating condition of microphones of an electronic device, the method comprising:

receiving signals from a plurality of microphones;

receiving device centric data;

setting a threshold for each of the plurality of microphones based on the device centric data;

identifying as a different signal a received signal that differs from the other of the received signals;

determining a difference factor between the different signal and the other of the received signals; and

ceasing to use the different signal when the difference factor exceeds the threshold for a microphone of the plurality of microphones that is a source of the different signal.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising using the different signal when the difference factor does not exceed the threshold for the microphone that is the source of the different signal.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the device centric data comprises orientation data of the device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the device centric data comprises at least one of ambient light data and proximity data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the operating condition comprises one of a free-field and an interference state.

6. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing executable instructions which when executed by a data processing system cause the data processing system to perform a method for determining the operating condition of microphones of an electronic device, the method comprising:

receiving signals from a plurality of microphones;

receiving device centric data;

setting a threshold for each of the plurality of microphones based on the device centric data;

identifying as a different signal a received signal that differs from the other of the received signals;

determining a difference factor between the different signal and the other of the received signals; and

ceasing to use the different signal when the difference factor exceeds the threshold for a microphone of the plurality of microphones that is a source of the different signal.

7. The medium of claim 6 further comprising using the different signal when the difference factor does not exceed the threshold for the microphone that is the source of the different signal.

8. The medium of claim 6, wherein the device centric data comprises orientation data of the device.

9. The medium of claim 6, wherein the device centric data comprises at least one of ambient light data and proximity data.

10. The medium of claim 6, wherein the operating condition comprises one of a free-field and an interference state.

11. The medium of claim 10 wherein the plurality of microphones comprise three or more microphones located on different planes of the electronic device.

12. An electronic device comprising:

a plurality of microphones configured to produce signals;

a sensor configured to provide one or more outputs representing device centric data;

a memory for storing a threshold for each of the plurality of microphones based on the device centric data;

a processing system coupled to the memory, to the sensor and to the plurality of microphones to receive the signals produced by the microphones, the processing system configured to identify as a different signal a signal from one of the plurality of microphones that differs from the other signals received from the plurality of microphones, the processing system configured to determine a difference between the different signal and the other signals, the processing system configured to cease using the different signal when the difference exceeds a threshold.

13. The device of claim 12 wherein the plurality of microphones comprise two or more microphones located on different planes of the electronic device.

14. The device of claim 12 wherein the processing system is configured to use the different signal when the difference does not exceed the threshold.

15. The device of claim 12 wherein the device centric data comprises orientation data of the device.

16. The device of claim 12 wherein the device centric data comprises at least one of ambient light data and proximity data.

17. The device of claim 12 wherein the processing system is configured to determine an operating condition of the plurality of microphones.

18. The device of claim 17 wherein the operating condition comprises one of free-field and interference state.