Patent Application
20230335104
The disclosure generally relates to a noise cancellation technology, more particularly, to an active noise cancellation integrated circuit for stacking at least one anti-noise signal and at least one non-anti-noise signal, an associated method, and an active noise cancellation headphone using the same.
General noise reduction techniques for headphones include passive noise cancellation (PNC) and active noise cancellation (ANC) The passive noise cancellation mainly isolate noise as much as possible through headphone sound-insulation materials or special structures, which generally are in-ear headphones or over-ear headphones. Wearing these two-types headphones for a long period of time cause ear pain, and excessive sound pressure may even cause users' hearing loss. The active noise cancellation means that a special noise cancellation circuit is set in headphones. Generally, an audio receiver (such as a miniature microphone) and an anti-noise output chip are used to receive and analyze frequency of external noise and generate an anti-noise sound in inverted phase. By the destructive interference, the external noise would be canceled.
Further, the active noise cancellation (ANC) generally includes feed-forward ANC, feedback ANC and hybrid ANC. Regarding the feed-forward ANC, a noise receiving microphone is disposed outside of headphones for receiving noise outside the headphone, and an anti-noise signal is generated by a digital signal processing integrated circuit. Regarding the feedback ANC, a noise receiving microphone is disposed inside headphones for receiving audio in ear canals, and an anti-noise signal is generated by feedback the audio to the digital signal processing integrated circuit. In addition, the hybrid ANC uses two or more noise receiving microphones to pick up noises, and generates multiple anti-noise signals through different digital signal processing integrated circuits, respectively, and stacks the anti-noise signals to eliminate noises.
Since audio waves are generated by signals from multiple microphones disposed on different positions and by different signal process, an end observation point receives the superposition of multiple audio waves, which leads to undesired compensation such that a user may hear degraded audio playback. In view of this, how to reduce or eliminate the above-mentioned deficiencies in related field is a problem to be solved.
The present invention provides an active noise cancellation headphone, the active noise cancellation headphone includes an audio-to-electrical signal conversion device and an active noise cancellation integrated circuit for stacking at least one anti-noise signal and at least one non-anti-noise signal of the present invention. The active noise cancellation integrated circuit for stacking at least one anti-noise signal and at least one non-anti-noise signal includes a first path, a second path and a first decoupling unit, wherein the first path outputs a first path non-anti-noise signal, wherein the first path non-anti-noise signal is converted to a first signal by a physical channel, wherein the first path includes a non-ANC filtering unit for generating a non-anti-noise signal, wherein the second path receives the error signal which includes a component of the first signal, and outputs a second path anti-noise signal to the physical channel, wherein the second path includes an ANC filtering unit for generating an anti-noise signal, wherein the second path anti-noise signal is derived from the anti-noise signal. The first decoupling unit is for removing the component of the first signal from the second path based on the non-anti-noise signal.
The present invention further provides an active noise cancellation (ANC) method for stacking at least one anti-noise signal and at least one non-anti-noise signal, adapted for an audio playback device with at least one ANC filter and at least one non-ANC filter. The active noise cancellation method for stacking at least one anti-noise signal and at least one non-anti-noise signal includes: providing a first path outputting a first path non-anti-noise signal, wherein the first path non-anti-noise signal is converted to a first signal by a physical channel, wherein the first path includes a non-ANC filtering unit, for generating a non-anti-noise signal; providing a second path receiving an error signal including a component of the first signal, and outputting a second path anti-noise signal to the physical channel, wherein the second path includes an ANC filtering unit for generating an anti-noise signal, wherein the second path anti-noise signal is derived from the anti-noise signal; removing the component of the first signal from the second path based on the non-anti-noise signal; and performing playback based on the first path non-anti-noise signal and the second path anti-noise signal to eliminate noise.
The spirit of the present invention is to set at least one ANC filtering unit and at least one non-ANC filtering unit in the active noise cancellation apparatus of the active noise cancellation headphone. Moreover, the redundant component (s) generated from the output signal of the active noise cancellation filtering unit is/are canceled by the decoupling method. Thus, with the help of the proposed decoupling technique, the intended purpose of the non-ANC filter, such as hearing aid, pass-through, or personal sound amplification, can be achieved by mitigating or suppressing the side effect caused by the ANC filter.
The other advantages of the present invention will be explained in more detail in conjunction with the following description and drawings.
Both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are examples and explanatory only, and are not restrictive of the invention as claimed.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
Reference is made in detail to embodiments of the invention, which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts, components, or operations.
The present invention will be described with respect to particular embodiments and with reference to certain drawings, but the invention is not limited thereto and is only limited by the claims. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes” and/or “including,” when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, components, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, components, components, and/or groups thereof.
Use of ordinal terms such as “first”, “second”, “third”, etc., in the claims to modify a claim component does not by itself connote any priority, precedence, or order of one claim component over another or the temporal order in which acts of a method are performed, but are used merely as labels to distinguish one claim component having a certain name from another component having the same name (but for use of the ordinal term) to distinguish the claim components.
It will be understood that when a component is referred to as being “connected” or “coupled” to another component, it can be directly connected or coupled to the other component or intervening components may be present. In contrast, when a component is referred to as being “directly connected” or “directly coupled” to another component, there are no intervening components present. Other words used to describe the relationship between components should be interpreted in a like fashion (e.g., “between” versus “directly between,” “adjacent” versus “directly adjacent.” etc.)
In other embodiments, other peer-to-peer methods such as Wi-Fi Direct, can also be used between the mobile device 103 and the left wireless earbud 101 and between the mobile device 103 and the right wireless earbud 102, the present invention is not limited thereto.
In the abovementioned embodiment, although wireless headphones are taken as an example of active noise cancellation headphones, people having ordinary skill in the art should know that active noise cancellation headphones may also be wired headphones, and the present invention is not limited thereto.
The first microphone 201 is disposed outside the headphone shell 19, and is mainly used for receiving an external noise signal of the in-ear headphone. The external noise signal captured by the first microphone 201 is, for example, to be sampled and applied with analog-to-digital conversion. After that, the external noise signal is converted into an electrical signal and the electrical signal is input to the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20. The first microphone 201 may be referred to as the reference microphone.
The second microphone 202 is disposed inside the headphone shell 19 and is located between the headphone shell 19 and an eardrum, and is mainly used to receive noises and echoes in a user's ear canal, that is, the ear canal echo. The headphone shell 19 is used to provide passive noise cancellation. For example, the headphone shell 19 includes material of sound insulation component. More specifically, the second microphone 202 is used to receive an audio signal in user's ear canal. The audio signal captured by the second microphone 202 would be converted into an electrical signal which is input to a second ANC filtering unit 204. The second microphone 202 may be served as an error microphone.
The active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 is used for generating an anti-noise electrical signal based on the electrical signal obtained by the first microphone 201 and the electrical signal obtained by the second microphone 202. For example, the anti-noise electrical signal in digital form is converted into an anti-noise audio signal sequentially through a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), a reconstruction filter, a power amplifier and a speaker. For analysis, the aforementioned conversion would be represented as a transfer function. In brief, the anti-noise electrical signal is converted into the anti-noise audio signal in audio form through the transfer function according to the aforementioned transmission. Accordingly, in order to evaluate the transfer function of the aforementioned transmission, it is necessary to involve the anti-noise electrical signal and the anti-noise audio signal into analysis.
However, the anti-noise audio signal in audio form cannot be directly obtained in practice. A possible alternative is to receive the anti-noise audio signal through the second microphone 202 in the absence of an external noise signal, and to convert the anti-noise audio signal into another analog electrical signal in analog form. The analog electrical signal is further converted into an electrical signal in digital form, for example, sequentially through a preamplifier, an anti-aliasing filter and an analog-to-digital converter, wherein the said electrical signal in digital form is used to replace the anti-noise audio signal in audio form to evaluate the transfer function.
Although the transfer function obtained in the alternative way involves not only the transmission path from the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 to an input of the second microphone 202 but also the transmission path from an output of the second microphone 202 to the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20. However, in order to simplify the analysis, the transfer function can be used to represent the transmission path from the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 to the input of the second microphone 202, wherein the transfer function is here served as a physical channel 205. It should be noted that the physical channel 205 includes the aforementioned speaker. In brief, the anti-noise electrical signal output by the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 is converted into an anti-noise audio signal in audio form through the aforementioned physical channel 205.
In addition, an another transmission path where the external noise signal enters the inner side of the headphone shell 19 from the outer side of the headphone shell 19 to a final arrival of the second microphone 202 is the primary path (not shown). For analysis, the primary path is presented as a transfer function. In brief, the external noise signal is converted into a residual noise signal by the transfer function of the primary path. Accordingly, to evaluate the transfer function of the primary path, it is necessary to involve the external noise signal and the residual noise signal into analysis.
However, in practice, the external noise signal and the residual noise signal cannot be directly obtained. A possible alternative is to receive the external noise signal through the first microphone 201 and to convert the external noise signal into another electrical signal in analog form. The another electrical signal in analog form is converted to an electrical signal in digital form, for example, sequentially through a preamplifier, an anti-aliasing filter and an analog-to-digital converter, wherein the said electrical signal in digital form is used to replace the external noise signal to evaluate the transfer function of the primary path. On the other hand, the residual noise signal is received through the second microphone 202 under a circumstance that the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 is disabled, and the residual noise signal is converted into the other electrical signal in an analog form. The other electrical signal in an analog form is converted to another electrical signal in digital form, for example, sequentially through a preamplifier, an anti-aliasing filter and an analog-to-digital converter, wherein the said another electrical signal in digital form is used to replace the residual noise signal to evaluate the transfer function of the primary path.
During actual operation of the active noise cancellation headphone (that is, when the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 is enabled), the anti-noise signal interferes with the residual noise signal to achieve the effect of active noise cancellation.
The active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 includes a first path and a second path.
The first path receives an output signal from the first microphone 201, and outputs a first path anti-noise signal to the physical channel 205. The first path anti-noise signal is converted to a first signal for noise cancellation by the physical channel 205.
The second path receives an output signal from the second microphone 202, and outputs a second path anti-noise signal to the physical channel 205. The second path anti-noise signal is converted to a second signal for noise cancellation by the physical channel 205.
The first path includes a first ANC filtering unit 203. Further, the first path is from an output terminal of the first microphone 201, via the first ANC filtering unit 203, to an input terminal of the physical channel 205.
The second path includes a second ANC filtering unit 204. Further, the second path is from an output terminal of the second microphone 202, and via the second ANC filtering unit 204, to an input terminal of the physical channel 205.
In the embodiment of
The second ANC filtering unit 204 performs filtering process on the output electrical signal of the second microphone 202 to generate a second anti-noise signal y′2(n). The second anti-noise signal y′2(n) in this embodiment is served as the second path anti-noise signal. A weighting of the second ANC filtering unit 204 is labeled as W2 in
In this embodiment, the first anti-noise signal y′1(n) and the second anti-noise signal y′2(n) are individually input to the physical channel 205. However, the present invention is not limited thereto. In some embodiment, the first anti-noise signal y′1(n) and the second anti-noise signal y′2 (n) may be added together in digital domain, then the added anti-noise signal is input to the physical channel 205.
In the audio-to-electrical signal conversion device 21, the first anti-noise signal y′1(n) and the second anti-noise signal y′2(n) are converted to an audio signal through the physical channel 205 to synthesize a noise cancellation signal, that is, the aforementioned anti-noise signal. Due to the reflection and attenuation of sound waves in the ear canal, echo interference occurs when the noise cancellation signal is actually conducted in the ear canal. In other words, the noise cancellation signal would reach user's ear and the second microphone 202 through a real environment physical channel.
In this embodiment, the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 for stacking multiple anti-noise signals is, for example, a dual anti-noise system with two active noise cancellation filter units 203 and 204 that can output two noise cancellation signals correspondingly. In general, the two noise cancellation signals are expected to interfere with each other, thereby reaching the effect of suppressing noise. However, the above expectation is unlikely to happen in reality, and the detailed descriptions are as follow in
As shown in
The reason why the unexpected noise suppression result occurs will be explain, please return to
The error signal e(n) output by the second microphone 202 can be regarded as an electrical signal in digital form.
When none of the active noise cancellation filtering units 203 and 204 is turned on, the second microphone 202 would only capture the primary noise signal d(n) as the error signal e(n), that is, e(n)=d(n). When the second ANC filtering unit 204 is turned on, the second microphone 202 would capture the primary noise signal d(n) and the second signal y2(n) to serve as the error signal e(n), that is, e(n)=d(n)+y2(n). The primary noise signal d(n) and the second signal y2(n) are added by an adding unit 206. It should be noted that the adding unit 206 shown in the
The second ANC filtering unit 204 generates the second anti-noise signal y′2(n) based on the error signal e(n) received by the second microphone 202. However, in this circumstance, based on the formula e(n)=d (n)+y1(n)+y2(n), the error signal e(n) captured by the second microphone 202 is interfered by the first signal y1(n), such that the second anti-noise signal y′2(n) generated by the second ANC filtering unit 204 is not effective, which causes issues such as excessively processing noise. In brief, due to all of audio received by the second microphone 202 including the first signal y1(n), actual noise wouldn't be properly suppressed or would be overcompensated.
The headphone type in the above embodiment is an in-ear headphone. That is to say, the headphone shell 19 is considered to effectively block the second signal y2(n) from propagating to the outside of the in-ear headphone, so that the first microphone 201 cannot receive the second signal y2(n).
If the headphone type is an open-type headphone, the headphone shell 19 would be considered that the second signal y2(n) cannot be effectively blocked from propagating to the outside of the headphone, and the first microphone 201 would receive the second signal y2(n). That would cause more serious mutual interference, and it would cause more severe noise even than the noise under only single noise cancellation being turned on in the system.
In order to address the above issue, a possible way is to remove the component of the first signal y1(n) from the error signal e(n) based on the mathematical principle of linear system, as shown in the embodiment of
The first decoupling unit 40 includes a first channel simulation filter 401 and a first adder circuit 402. The first channel simulation filter 401 simulates, for example, a transfer function of the physical channel 205. The simulated physical channel is represented as the Z-domain transfer function Ŝ(z). In other words, the simulated physical channel Ŝ(z) is substantially equivalent to the physical channel S(z) 205.
The physical channel 205 is used to represent transmission from an filter (e.g. the first ANC filtering unit 203 or the second ANC filtering unit 204) to the second microphone 202, in order to analyze the transformation of an electrical signal output by the ANC filter after the transmission, wherein the transfer function S(z) represents the simulation result. In some possible implementations, the external noise source is removed, and the transfer function S(z) is evaluated based on the electrical signal output by the ANC filter and the error signal e(n) acquired from the second microphone 202, wherein there is no primary noise signal d(n) since the external noise source is removed. Thus, the error signal is substantially equivalent to at least one of the first signal y1(n) and the second signal y2(n) or the sum of the first signal y1(n) and the second signal y2(n) according to the enablement state of the first ANC filtering unit 203 and the second ANC filtering unit 204.
The first channel simulation filter 401 receives the first anti-noise signal y′1(n) output by the first ANC filtering unit 203 to generate the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n). In this case where the simulated physical channel Ŝ(z) is substantially the same as the physical channel S(z) 205, since an input signal of the simulated physical channel Ŝ(z) and an input signal of the physical channel S(z) 205 are both first anti-noise signal y′1(n), the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n) output by the simulated physical channel Ŝ(z) is substantially equivalent to the first signal y1(n) output by the physical channel S(z) 205. Next, a first input port of the first adder circuit 402 receives the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n), and a second input port of the first adder circuit 402 receives the error signal e(n). Then, the first adder circuit 402 deducts the component of the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n) from the error signal e(n), which can be deemed as deducting the first signal y1(n) from the error signal e(n), and provides the deducted result to the second ANC filtering unit 204. The error signal e(n) received by the second ANC filtering unit 204 is substantially equal to d(n)+y2(n) and no longer contains the first signal y1(n). Therefore, the noise suppression effect would be significantly improved. In this embodiment, the first decoupling unit 40 deducts the first signal y1(n) from the error signal e(n) by electrical signal process, so as to solve the abovementioned issue of overcompensation.
In this embodiment, the first decoupling unit 50 includes a first channel simulation filter 501, a third ANC filtering unit 502, a first adder circuit 503 and a second adder circuit 504.
Function of the first channel simulation filter 501 is the same as that of the first channel simulation filter 401 in the embodiment of
In this embodiment, the transfer function of the third ANC filtering unit 502 is, for example, the same as the transfer function of the second ANC filtering unit 204. Therefore, the weighting of the third ANC filtering unit 502 is also W2. That is to say, the filtering operation of the third ANC filtering unit 502 is the same as that of the second ANC filtering unit 204. Thus, when the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n) is input to the third ANC filtering unit 502, the third anti-noise signal output by the third ANC filtering unit 502 can be represented as ŷ1(n) W2.
The second ANC filtering unit 204 receives the error signal output by the second microphone 202, which is marked as d(n)+y1(n)+y2(n), so the signal output by the second ANC filtering unit 204 is marked as [d(n)+y1(n)+y2(n)]W2.
A first input port of the first adder circuit 503 receives the third anti-noise signal ŷ1(n) W2, and a second input port of the first adder circuit 503 receives the second anti-noise signal [d(n)+y1(n)+y2(n)]W2. Since ŷ1(n) is substantially equivalent to y1(n), after one of the two signals is subtracted from the other of the two signals by the first adder circuit 503, an output of the first adder circuit 503 is approximately equal to [d(n)+y2(n)] W2. Further, the primary noise signal d(n) in the output [d(n)+y2(n)] W2 is negligible. Therefore, the output [d(n)+y2(n)] W2 can be further simplified to the formula [y2(n)] W2, which is represented here as y′2(n). It can be seen that although the second ANC filtering unit 204 is interfered by the first signal y1(n), the interference is equivalently eliminated by the third ANC filtering unit 502 and the first adder circuit 503.
A first input port of the second adder circuit 504 is coupled to an output port of the first adder circuit 503 to receive the output y′2(n), and a second input port of the second adder circuit 504 receives the first anti-noise signal y′1(n). One of the two signals is added the other of the two signals to obtain y′1(n)+y′2(n), which is served as the component of the electrical signal of the noise cancellation signal. In another preferred embodiment, the second adder circuit 504 may be omitted.
The abovementioned embodiment in
The first decoupling unit 60 includes a third ANC filtering unit 601, a channel simulation filter 602, a first adder circuit 603 and a second adder circuit 604, wherein the function of the channel simulation filter 602 is the same as the function of the first channel simulation filter 401 in the embodiment of
The operation of the third ANC filtering unit 601 is the same as the operation of the second ANC filtering unit 204. The difference is that the third ANC filtering unit 601 receives the first anti-noise signal y′1(n) output by the first ANC filtering unit 203, and outputs the third anti-noise signal y′1(n) W2. Afterward, the third anti-noise signal y′1(n) W2 is processed by the first channel simulation filter 602 to generate the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n) W2.
Furthermore, the operation of the third ANC filtering unit 601 is similar to that of the third ANC filtering unit 502 in
A first input port of the first adder circuit 603 receives the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n)W2, a second input port of the first adder circuit 603 receives the first anti-noise signal y′1(n), and one of the two signals is subtracted from the other of the two signals. Then, the subtracted signal and a signal on the path of the second ANC filtering unit 204 are interfered with each other through the second adder circuit 604 to eliminate the component of the first signal y1(n) from the anti-noise signal [d(n)+y1(n)+y2(n)] W2 output by the second ANC filtering unit 204. Specifically, the component ŷ1(n)W2 in the signal [y′1(n)−ŷ1(n)W2] output by the first adder circuit 603 is used to cancel the component [y1(n)W2] in the anti-noise signal [d(n)+y1(n)+y2(n)]W2 output by the second ANC filtering unit 204. Moreover, the primary noise signal d(n) in the anti-noise signal [d(n)+y1(n)+y2(n)] W2 can be ignored. Accordingly, the signal output by the second adder circuit 604 is [y2(n)W2+y′1(n)], which can be further simplified as [y′2(n)+y′1(n)].
In the abovementioned embodiments, in-ear headphone is taken as an example. Since the in-ear headphone has a good isolation effect between the internal microphone and the external microphone, the noise received by the internal microphone cannot be received by the external microphone. Therefore, in the abovementioned embodiments, echo noise cannot affect the first microphone 201. The following embodiment is an example without have good isolation.
This embodiment has the same concept as the abovementioned several embodiments. The first decoupling unit 40 is used for generating a first decoupling signal according to an anti-noise signal output by the first ANC filtering unit 203. Similarly, the second decoupling unit 70 is used for generating a second decoupling signal according to an anti-noise signal output by the second ANC filtering unit 204.
Similar to the embodiment in
On the other hand, since the mechanical appearance of the headphone is not an isolated type in this embodiment, the external first microphone 201 will also be interfered by the reverse of the echo noise inside the ear canal. Another physical channel 72 in this real environment is represented as S2(z) by the Z-domain transfer function. In other words, the transfer function S2(z) of the second physical channel 72 is used to represent the transmission between the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 and the input of the first microphone 201. Similarly, after the anti-noise signals y′1(n) and y′2(n) output by the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 are transmitted through the second physical channel 72, x1(n) represents an audio signal corresponding to the first anti-noise signal y′1(n), and x2(n) represents an audio signal corresponding to the second anti-noise signal y′2(n). Regarding the actual audio signal transmission, the signals x1(n) and x2(n) are transmitted from the ear canal to the first microphone 201, thus the channel response thereof is different from the channel response in the ear canal. Therefore, the signals x1(n) and x2(n) are different from the audio signals y1(n) and y2(n).
In addition to receiving the signals x1(n) and x2(n), the first microphone 201 also receives an external noise signal d1(n). Accordingly, the external noise signal d1(n), the signals x1(n) and x2(n) are converted to a second error signal e1(n) by the first microphone 201. In addition, the external noise signal d1(n) is converted into a primary noise signal d2(n) after entering from the outside of the active noise cancellation headphone to the inside of the active noise cancellation headphone. The primary noise signal d2(n) is substantially equal to the primary noise signal d(n) in
If the second error signal e1(n) is not appropriately processed, the second error signal e1(n) received by the first ANC filtering unit 203 includes the signal x2(n). Due to the similar reasoning provided in the embodiment of
Therefore, this embodiment provides a second decoupling unit 70 including a second channel simulation filter 701 and a second adder circuit 702. Since the signal x2(n) is output by the physical channel 72, the second channel simulation filter 701 needs to simulate the above physical channel 72 instead of simulating the physical channel 205 to effectively eliminate the signal x2(n) in the second error signal e1(n).
The second channel simulation filter 701 receives the second anti-noise signal y′2(n) output by the second ANC filtering unit 204 to generate the second decoupling signal x{circumflex over ( )}2(n). The second decoupling signal x{circumflex over ( )}2(n) is substantially equal to the signal x2(n). Next, a first input port of the second adder circuit 702 receives the second decoupling signal x{circumflex over ( )}2(n), and a second input port of the second adder circuit 702 receives the second error signal e1(n). Thereby, the component of the signal x2(n) in the second error signal e1(n) is removed, and the removed second error signal e1(n) (hereinafter, a signal e1′(n)) is output to the first ANC filtering unit 203. The signal e1′(n) received by the first ANC filtering unit 203 is substantially equal to d1(n)+x1(n). The first ANC filtering unit 203 is not interfered by the signal x2(n), such that the generated first anti-noise signal y′1(n) thereof is effective.
In this embodiment, a first path is from an output terminal of the first microphone 201, via the first ANC filtering unit 203, to an input terminal of each of the physical channels 205 and 72. A second path is from an output terminal of the second microphone 202, via the second ANC filtering unit 204, to an input terminal of each of the physical channels 205 and 72. The first path anti-noise signal is converted to the third signal x1(n) by the second physical channel 72. The second path anti-noise signal is converted to the fourth signal x2(n) by the second physical channel 72. In other words, the first path receives the second error signal e1(n) with the component of the fourth signal x2(n), so that the first ANC filtering unit 203 in the first path is interfered by the fourth signal x2(n). The second decoupling unit 70 in this embodiment is used for removing the component of the fourth signal x2(n) from the first path based on the second anti-noise signal y′2(n).
In another embodiment, only a single microphone is implemented, but there are two active noise cancellation circuits in system. Referring to
Different from the embodiment in
That is to say, referring to
In this embodiment, a first path starts from an output terminal of the second microphone 202, and via the first ANC filtering unit 203, to an input terminal of the physical channel 205. A second path starts from an output terminal of the second microphone 202, via the second ANC filtering unit 204, to an input terminal of the physical channel 205.
For the first ANC filtering unit 203, if a signal to be received by the first ANC filtering unit 203 is not applied with a decoupling process, the first ANC filtering unit 203 would be interfered by the signals y0(n) and y2(n). Therefore, a channel simulation filter 901 and an adder circuit 902 in a third decoupling unit 90 are used to eliminate the interference of the signal y0(n), and a second decoupling unit 80 is used to eliminate the interference of the signal y2(n). The principle of eliminating interference is the same as that of the previous embodiments. Thus, the detail description is omitted.
For the second ANC filtering unit 204, if a signal to be received by the second ANC filtering unit 204 is not applied with a decoupling process, the second ANC filtering unit 204 would be interfered by the signals y0(n) and y1(n). Therefore, the channel simulation filter 901 and an adder circuit 903 in the third decoupling unit 90 are used to eliminate the interference of the signal y0(n), and the first decoupling unit 40 is used to eliminate the interference of the signal y1(n). The principle of eliminating interference is the same as that of the previous embodiments. Thus, the detail description is omitted. In addition, in this embodiment, in order to simplify wiring complexity in component schematic diagram, relative positions between the adding unit 206 and the second microphone 202 in
According to the description above, this embodiment further includes a third path, starting from an output terminal of the first microphone 201, via the third ANC filtering unit 91, to an input terminal of the physical channel 205. A third anti-noise signal y′0(n) output by the third ANC filtering unit 91 is, for example, the third path anti-noise signal in this embodiment, and the third anti-noise signal y′0(n) is converted to a third signal y0(n) by the physical channel 205. Since both the first path and the second path receive the error signal e(n) containing the component of the third signal y0(n), the third decoupling unit 90 proposed in this embodiment removes the component of the third signal y0(n) from the first path and the second path based on the third anti-noise signal y′0(n).
In order to address the abovementioned issue, an embodiment of the present invention provides an active noise cancellation method for stacking multiple anti-noise signals.
In step S1001, a first path is provided, and a first path anti-noise signal is output, wherein the first path anti-noise signal is converted to a first signal by a physical channel, wherein the first path includes a first ANC filtering unit for generating a first anti-noise signal. A second path is provided. The second path receives an error signal including a component of the first signal, and outputs a second path anti-noise signal to the physical channel, wherein the second path includes a second ANC filtering unit for generating a second anti-noise signal, and wherein the second path anti-noise signal is derived from the second anti-noise signal.
In step S1002, the component of the first signal is removed from the second path based on the first anti-noise signal. As shown in
In step S1003, a playback is performed based on the first path anti-noise signal and the second path anti-noise signal to cancel noise.
In summary, the spirit of the present invention is to set multiple active noise cancellation filtering unit in active noise cancellation apparatuses of active noise cancellation headphones. Moreover, the redundant component (s) generated from an output signal of active noise cancellation filtering units is/are canceled by a decoupling process. Thus, an output noise cancellation signal from the active noise cancellation apparatus would match the received noise relatively well such that the received noise can be properly canceled.
In above embodiments, a filter circuit located at the first path included in the active noise cancellation integrated circuit 20 is used for the ANC purpose. However, this is for illustrative purposes only, and is not meant to be a limitation of the present invention. In practice, any application using the proposed decoupling technique falls with the scope of the present invention.
For example, an active noise cancellation integrated circuit using the proposed decoupling technique may have an ANC function (e.g., a feedback ANC function) integrated with a hearing aid (HA) function. The principle of HA is to amplify the sound picked up by the reference microphone and then play back to a hearing-impaired user for hearing loss compensation. The characteristics of the amplification are controlled by an HA filter which is a non-ANC filter.
For another example, an active noise cancellation integrated circuit using the proposed decoupling technique may have an ANC function (e.g., a feedback ANC function) integrated with a pass-through (PT) function. PT is very similar to HA, and is to calibrate the sound picked up by the reference microphone and then play back to the user to recover the sound blocked or attenuated by the headphone/earphone shell. In some applications, the PT function can be used to boost audio components in a high-frequency band that is blocked or attenuated by the headphone/earphone shell. Hence, the user wearing a headphone/earphone that operates in a PT mode may hear the ambient sound very similar to that heard by the user without wearing the headphone/earphone. The compensation is controlled by a PT filter which is a non-ANC filter.
For yet another example, an active noise cancellation integrated circuit using the proposed decoupling technique may have an ANC function (e.g., a feedback ANC function) integrated with a personal sound amplification (PSAP) function. As the name suggests, PSAP is to amplify the sound but does not address other components of hearing loss. Specifically, PSAP has not been approved as a medical device by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is classified as a wearable electronic product for occasional, recreation use by a user who is not hearing impaired. The characteristics of the amplification are controlled by a PSAP filter which is a non-ANC filter.
The ANC function (e.g., feedback ANC function) could cancel the low-frequency noise picked up by an in-ear microphone acting as an error microphone, and is helpful to reduce the occlusion effect caused by HA/PT/PSAP. However, the ANC function (e.g., feedback ANC function) will also cancel the sound played by the speaker of the headphone/earphone, which reduces the performance of HA/PT/PSAP. The proposed decoupling technique mentioned above can also be used to improve performance of HA/PT/PSAP provided by a non-ANC filter through mitigating or cancelling the side effect caused by an ANC filter (e.g., a feedback ANC filter).
The present invention has no limitations on the non-ANC filtering unit 1103. The non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be set by any suitable non-ANC filter needed by an application. For example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be an HA filter with a weighting labeled as WHA. For another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PT filter with a weighting labeled as WPT. For yet another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PSAP filter with a weighting labeled as WPSAP.
The active noise cancellation integrated circuit 110 shown in
It can be seen that although the second ANC filtering unit 204 is interfered by the first signal y1(n), the interference is equivalently eliminated by the third ANC filtering unit 502 and the first adder circuit 503. Since the first signal y1(n) (which is derived from passing the non-anti-noise signal y′1(n) through the physical channel 205) is removed from the second path through the first decoupling unit 50, the intended purpose of the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 can be achieved by mitigating or cancelling the side effect caused by the second ANC filtering unit 204. That is, the feedback ANC does not cause loss of the first signal y1(n), and the intended purpose of the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 can be achieved without performance degradation.
The present invention has no limitations on the non-ANC filtering unit 1103. The non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be set by any suitable non-ANC filter needed by an application. For example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be an HA filter with a weighting labeled as WHA. For another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PT filter with a weighting labeled as WPT. For yet another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PSAP filter with a weighting labeled as WPSAP.
According to the mathematical principle of the linear system, the difference in the configuration sequence does not substantially lead to the change of the result. For example, in some embodiments, the non-anti-noise signal y′1(n) output from the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 can be configured to be processed by the third ANC filtering unit 502 first, and then in turn processed by the first channel simulation filter 501.
The active noise cancellation integrated circuit 110 shown in
The abovementioned embodiment in
Furthermore, the operation of the third ANC filtering unit 601 is similar to that of the third ANC filtering unit 502 in
The first input port of the first adder circuit 603 receives the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n) W2, the second input port of the first adder circuit 603 receives the non-anti-noise signal y′1(n), and one of the two signals is subtracted from the other of the two signals. Then, the subtracted signal and a signal on the path of the second ANC filtering unit 204 are interfered with each other through the second adder circuit 604 to eliminate the component of the first signal y1(n) from the anti-noise signal [d (n)+y1(n)+y2(n)] W2 output by the second ANC filtering unit 204. Specifically, the component ŷ1(n)W2 in the signal [y′1(n)−ŷ1(n)W2] output by the first adder circuit 603 is used to cancel the component [y1(n) W2] in the anti-noise signal [d(n)+y1(n)+y2(n)]W2 output by the second ANC filtering unit 204. Moreover, the primary noise signal d(n) in the anti-noise signal [d(n)+y1(n)+y2(n)]W2 can be ignored. Accordingly, the signal output by the second adder circuit 604 is [y2(n)W2+y′1(n)], which can be further simplified as [y′2(n)+y′1(n)]. Since the first signal y1(n) (which is derived from passing the non-anti-noise signal y′1(n) through the physical channel 205) is removed from the second path through the first decoupling unit 60, the intended purpose of the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 can be achieved by mitigating or cancelling the side effect caused by the second ANC filtering unit 204. That is, the feedback ANC does not cause loss of the first signal y1(n), and the intended purpose of the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 can be achieved without performance degradation.
The present invention has no limitations on the non-ANC filtering unit 1103. The non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be set by any suitable non-ANC filter needed by an application. For example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be an HA filter with a weighting labeled as WHA. For another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PT filter with a weighting labeled as WPT. For yet another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PSAP filter with a weighting labeled as WPSAP.
The active noise cancellation integrated circuit 110 shown in
In the abovementioned embodiments, in-ear headphone is taken as an example. Since the in-ear headphone has a good isolation effect between the internal microphone and the external microphone, the noise received by the internal microphone cannot be received by the external microphone. Therefore, in the abovementioned embodiments, echo noise cannot affect the first microphone 201. The following embodiment is an example without having good isolation.
Referring to
This embodiment has the same concept as the aforementioned several embodiments. The first decoupling unit 40 is used for generating a first decoupling signal according to a non-anti-noise signal output by the non-ANC filtering unit 1103. Similarly, the second decoupling unit 70 is used for generating a second decoupling signal according to an anti-noise signal output by the second ANC filtering unit 204.
The first decoupling signal ŷ1(n) is substantially equal to the first signal y1(n). The first error signal e2(n) received by the second microphone 202 is [d2(n)+y1(n)+y2(n)]. Next, the first decoupling signal ŷ1(n) deducts the y1(n) component from the first error signal e2(n), and outputs the deducted first error signal e2(n) (hereinafter, a signal e2′(n)) to the second ANC filtering unit 204. The signal e2′(n) received by the second ANC filtering unit 204 is substantially equal to d2(n)+y2(n). In other words, the second ANC filtering unit 204 is no longer interfered by the first signal y1(n).
The second decoupling unit 70 includes the second channel simulation filter 701 and the second adder circuit 702. The second channel simulation filter 701 receives the second anti-noise signal y′2(n) output by the second ANC filtering unit 204 to generate the second decoupling signal x{circumflex over ( )}2(n). The second decoupling signal x{circumflex over ( )}2(n) is substantially equal to the signal x2(n). Next, the component of the signal x2(n) in the second error signal e1(n) is removed, and the removed second error signal e1(n) (hereinafter, a signal e1′(n)) is output to the non-ANC filtering unit 1103. The signal e1′(n) received by the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 is substantially equal to d1(n)+x1(n). The non-ANC filtering unit 1103 is not interfered by the signal x2(n).
The present invention has no limitations on the non-ANC filtering unit 1103. The non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be set by any suitable non-ANC filter needed by an application. For example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be an HA filter with a weighting labeled as WHA. For another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PT filter with a weighting labeled as WPT. For yet another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PSAP filter with a weighting labeled as WPSAP.
The active noise cancellation integrated circuit 110 shown in
For the non-ANC filtering unit 1103, the channel simulation filter 901 and the adder circuit 902 in the third decoupling unit 90 are used to eliminate the interference of the signal y0(n) (which is derived from passing the third anti-noise signal y′0(n) through the physical channel 205), and the second decoupling unit 80 is used to eliminate the interference of the signal y2(n) (which is derived from passing the second anti-noise signal y′2(n) through the physical channel 205). For the second ANC filtering unit 204, the channel simulation filter 901 and the adder circuit 903 in the third decoupling unit 90 are used to eliminate the interference of the signal y0(n) (which is derived from passing the third anti-noise signal y′0(n) through the physical channel 205), and the first decoupling unit 40 is used to eliminate the interference of the signal y1(n) (which is derived from passing the non-anti-noise signal y′1(n) through the physical channel 205).
The present invention has no limitations on the non-ANC filtering unit 1103. The non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be set by any suitable non-ANC filter needed by an application. For example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be an HA filter with a weighting labeled as WHA. For another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PT filter with a weighting labeled as WPT. For yet another example, the non-ANC filtering unit 1103 may be a PSAP filter with a weighting labeled as WPSAP.
The active noise cancellation integrated circuit 110 shown in
In step S1601, a first path is provided, and a first path non-anti-noise signal is output, wherein the first path non-anti-noise signal is converted to a first signal by a physical channel, wherein the first path includes a non-ANC filtering unit for generating a non-anti-noise signal. A second path is provided. The second path receives an error signal including a component of the first signal, and outputs a second path anti-noise signal to the physical channel, wherein the second path includes an ANC filtering unit for generating an anti-noise signal, and wherein the second path anti-noise signal is derived from the anti-noise signal.
In step S1602, the component of the first signal is removed from the second path based on the non-anti-noise signal. As shown in
In step S1603, a playback is performed based on the first path non-anti-noise signal and the second path anti-noise signal to cancel noise.
Although the embodiment has been described as having specific components in
In above embodiments, an active noise cancellation integrated circuit may apply the proposed decoupling technique to a combination of multiple ANC filters, or may apply the proposed decoupling technique to a combination of non-ANC filter(s) and ANC filter(s). In practice, the same decoupling concept for interference mitigation or performance enhancement may be applied to any combination of filters employed by an active noise cancellation integrated circuit.
While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of the preferred embodiments, it should be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements (as would be apparent to those skilled in the art). Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202111233417.9 | Oct 2021 | CN | national |
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 17/699,631, filed on Mar. 21, 2022, and further claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/469,809, filed on May 30, 2023. The content of these applications is incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63469809 | May 2023 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 17699631 | Mar 2022 | US |
| Child | 18211288 | US |
