1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a loudspeaker, and more particularly, to a device and a method for calculating excursion of a diaphragm of a loudspeaker and a method for controlling a loudspeaker.
2. Description of Related Art
One criterion in designing a loudspeaker is preventing the loudspeaker from damages when the loudspeaker outputs a large sound. Some main reasons causing damages are excessive vibration of a diaphragm or overheat of a voice coil of the loudspeaker. One possible cause of such excessive vibration of a diaphragm leading to damages in the diaphragm may be that the excursion of the diaphragm (a displacement relative to a still position) exceeds the tolerable range of the diaphragm, or damages in diaphragm are resulted from collisions into other objects due to such excessive excursion. Both of the scenarios above lead to irreversible structural damages in the diaphragm.
Conventionally, there are two general approaches for protecting a diaphragm of a loudspeaker. One is to obtain numerous model parameters of a loudspeaker before measuring the excursion of the diaphragm. However, these parameters involving complex calculations. Further, after using a loudspeaker for an extended period of time, aging of materials may change the model in a way that the original model parameters become no longer applicable. That is, continuing using old model parameters may yield inaccurate measurement values, and expected protection effects cannot be achieved.
In the other approach for protecting a diaphragm of a loudspeaker, an impedance function of a predetermined frequency is obtained according to a voltage and a current, and an input-voltage-to-excursion transfer function associated with the frequency is then obtained according to blocked electrical impedance and a force factor of the loudspeaker. For example, the U.S. Pat. No. 8,942,381, discloses a method for obtaining a time-domain input-voltage-to-excursion transfer function. In the above disclosure, admittance is obtained based on a voltage and a current of a voice coil, and is then incorporated with a delta (A) function, a force factor and blocked electrical impedance to obtain the time-domain input-voltage-to-excursion transfer function. Although requiring less model parameters of a loudspeaker, the above disclosure involves a colossal amount of computation amount, due to several reasons below. First, in addition to being in form of a complex number, the impedance or admittance is associated with the frequency and must be calculated for many frequency components. Secondly, the calculation for the impedance or admittance is complex and involves adaptive filtering. Another reason is that, convolutional operations are required for calculating the excursion of a diaphragm according to impedance or admittance. All of the above reasons cause an extremely complex computation process with a vast computation amount, which indirectly increases the time needed for calculating the excursion as well as chip power consumption.
In view of the issues of the prior art, a device and a method for calculating excursion of a diaphragm of a loudspeaker and a method for controlling a loudspeaker are disclosed.
A device for calculating an excursion of a diaphragm of a loudspeaker that comprises a diaphragm and is driven by a voltage signal is disclosed. The device comprising a detection circuit that detects said voltage signal and a current signal inputted to said loudspeaker, a storage unit that stores a plurality of program instructions, and a processing unit that executes said program instructions to perform steps of: a) low-pass filtering said voltage signal and said current signal to generate a low-pass filtered voltage signal and a low-pass filtered current signal, respectively; b) calculating a direct-current (DC) resistance of said loudspeaker according to said low-pass filtered voltage signal and said low-pass filtered current signal; c) calculating a vibration velocity of said diaphragm according to said voltage signal, said current signal and said DC resistance; and d) calculating said excursion of said diaphragm of said loudspeaker according to said vibration velocity. Step (a) to step (d) involve real-number calculations that do not analyze frequency components of said voltage signal and said current signal.
A method for calculating an excursion of a diaphragm of a loudspeaker that comprises a diaphragm and is driven by a voltage signal is disclosed. The method comprising: a) low-pass filtering said voltage signal and a current signal inputted to said loudspeaker to generate a low-pass filtered voltage signal and a low-pass filtered current signal, respectively; b) calculating a direct-current (DC) resistance of said loudspeaker according to said low-pass filtered voltage signal and said low-pass filtered current signal; c) calculating a vibration velocity of said diaphragm according to said voltage signal, said current signal and said DC resistance; and d) calculating said excursion of said diaphragm of said loudspeaker according to said vibration velocity. Step (a) to step (d) involve real-number calculations that do not analyze frequency components of said voltage signal and said current signal.
A method for controlling a loudspeaker, applied to a loudspeaker that comprises a diaphragm and is driven by a voltage signal is disclose. The method comprising: a) low-pass filtering said voltage signal and a current signal inputted to said loudspeaker to generate a low-pass filtered voltage signal and a low-pass filtered current signal, respectively; b) calculating a direct-current (DC) resistance of said loudspeaker according to said low-pass filtered voltage signal and said low-pass filtered current signal; c) calculating a vibration velocity of said diaphragm according to said voltage signal, said current signal and said DC resistance; d) calculating an excursion of said diaphragm of said loudspeaker according to said vibration velocity; and e) adjusting said voltage signal according to said excursion of said diaphragm. Step (a) to step (d) involve real-number calculations that do not analyze frequency components of said voltage signal and said current signal.
The device and method for calculating the excursion of a diaphragm of a loudspeaker and the method for controlling a loudspeaker of the present disclosure are capable of obtaining the excursion of the diaphragm of the loudspeaker simply through real-number calculations. Compared to the prior art, the present disclosure includes real-number calculations that are frequency-independent, and is not required to calculate the impedance or admittance. Hence, the computation amount is significantly reduced.
These and other objectives of the present disclosure no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments with reference to the various figures and drawings.
The following description is written by referring to terms of this technical field. If any term is defined in this specification, such term should be explained accordingly. In addition, the connection between objects or events in the below-described embodiments can be direct or indirect provided that these embodiments are practicable under such connection. Said “indirect” means that an intermediate object or a physical space exists between the objects, or an intermediate event or a time interval exists between the events.
In some embodiments, the measurement of the voltage signal v(t) is not limited to measuring the voltage at an input of the loudspeaker 120 using the detection circuit 130, and may also be predicted or estimated based on the audio signal s[n] and the gain of the amplifier.
Equations (2) and (3) are further obtained from equation (1):
Equation (2) is an expression of the back EMF generated in response to the diaphragm vibration, and equation (3) is an expression of the vibration velocity u(t) of the diaphragm. It is obvious that the ratio of the back EMF B·L·u(t) to the vibration velocity u(t) of the diaphragm is a constant value (i.e., the force factor of the loudspeaker 120); thus calculating one of the back EMF B·L·u(t) and the vibration velocity u(t) is substantially equivalent to calculating the other. The mechanism which the present disclosure uses to calculate the excursion of the diaphragm is illustrated below through an example of calculating the vibration velocity u(t) of the diaphragm.
For a small-sized loudspeaker, the effect caused by inductance impedance jωLe is far smaller than that caused by the resistance Re. Thus, the effect of the inductance may be omitted, i.e.,
in equation (3) is omitted, and the vibration velocity u(t) of the diaphragm in equation (3) is approximately:
By integrating the vibration velocity u(t) with respect to time t, the excursion x(t) of the diaphragm is obtained:
The following shows how the present disclosure practices equation (5) to obtain the excursion x(t) of the diaphragm of the loudspeaker 120. Referring back to
The processing unit 150 is a logic circuit, e.g., a microprocessor, a microcontroller unit (MCU) or a central processing unit (CPU), with capabilities for executing program codes, commands or program instructions. These program codes, commands or program instructions are stored in the storage unit 160, and implement the operation principles and/or algorithms of the present disclosure. The processing unit 150 executes these program codes, commands or program instructions to realize the mechanism of the present disclosure. In addition to the above program codes, commands and program instructions, the storage unit 160 further stores some parameters, e.g., the force factor of the loudspeaker 120.
There may be multiple function modules based on the functions of the program codes, commands or program instructions. The processing unit 150 performs these program codes, commands or program instructions to realize the functions of the modules.
In some embodiments, at least one of the LPF module 152, the diaphragm velocity calculating module 154, the diaphragm excursion and excursion averaging module 156, and the comparing module 158 may be implemented by an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
The LPF module 152 low-pass filters the voltage signal v[n] and the current signal i[n] to generate a low-pass filtered voltage signal vl[n] and a low-pass filtered current signal il[n]. The diaphragm velocity calculating module 154 calculates the resistance Re in equation (5) according to the low-pass filtered voltage signal vl[n] and the low-pass filtered current signal il[n]. Actually, the voltage signal v(t) not only corresponds to the audio signal s[n] but also includes a low-frequency signal. Derived from the voltage signal v(t), the voltage signal v[n] and the low-pass filtered voltage signal vl[n] both include the low-frequency signal as well. The frequency of the low-frequency signal is lower than the lower limit of the human ear audible frequency range (20 Hz), and thus does not impose any effect on a listener. Further, as the impedance measured based on the low-frequency signal approximates the value of the DC resistance Re, the DC resistance Re can be obtained, based on the Ohms' law, according to the low-pass filtered voltage signal vl[n] and the low-pass filtered current signal il[n].
One main purpose of the diaphragm velocity calculating module 154 is implementing equation (4) to obtain the vibration velocity u(t) of the diaphragm. Take the discrete-time domain for example. The diaphragm velocity calculating module 154 first obtains the value of the DC resistance Re according to the low-pass filtered voltage signal vl[n] and the low-pass filtered current signal it[n]. More specifically, the diaphragm velocity calculating module 154 first obtains respective temporal averages of the low-pass filtered voltage signal vl[n] and the low-pass filtered current signal il[n], e.g., arithmetic averages, geometric averages, exponential averages, or root mean squares (RMS). Taking the RMS for example, vl_rms[n] and il_rms[n] are respectively obtained, and the resistance Re is then calculated, e.g., Re=vl_rms[n]/il_rms[n]. After obtaining Re, the diaphragm velocity calculating module 154 calculates the product of the resistance Re and the current signal i[n], and divides the result of subtracting the product from the voltage signal v[n] by the force factor B·L to obtain the vibration velocity u[n] of the diaphragm.
Based on the equation (4) and the above description, as the constant B·L, and the variables v[n], i[n], vl[n] and i[n] are all real numbers, the calculation which the diaphragm velocity calculating module 154 performs involves only real numbers instead of imaginary numbers. Further, although the voltage signal v[n] and the current signal i[n] include many frequency components, the diaphragm velocity calculating module 154 does not need to analyze these frequency components (e.g., calculating impedance or admittance of respective frequency components). Therefore, compared to the prior art, the diaphragm velocity calculating module 154 does not need adaptive filtering operations, and so the computation complexity can be significantly reduced.
The diaphragm excursion and excursion averaging module 156 calculates the excursion x[n] of the diaphragm according to the vibration velocity u[n] of the diaphragm. According to equation (5), the vibration velocity u[n] is multiplied by the cycle T of the sampling clock, and then the products corresponding to sequential indices n are added up to obtain the excursion of the diaphragm, i.e., x[n]=Σu[n]·T. The average value of the excursion x[n] is then obtained according to equation (6) below:
x
avg
[n]=α·x
avg
[n−1]+(1−α)·x[n] (6)
Equation (6) is an exponential average calculation. The current average xavg[n] is equivalently the previous average xavg[n−1] multiplied by a weight a (0<α<1) and then added with the current excursion x[n] multiplied by a weight (1−α). Because the excursion x[n] is a real number, equation (6) is also a real-number calculation that does not involve any imaginary numbers, meaning that the diaphragm excursion and excursion averaging module 156 can quickly obtain the average xavg[n] of the diaphragm through performing less complex calculations. It should be noted that, the method adopted by the diaphragm excursion and excursion averaging module 156 is not limited to equation (6), and other averaging methods, e.g., arithmetic average, geometric average and root mean square methods (equation (7)), are also applicable to the present disclosure.
x
avg
[n]=√{square root over (x2[n]+α·(xavg2[n−1]−x2[n]))} (7)
The comparing module 158 compares the average xavg[n] of the excursion with a threshold Eth (stored in the storage unit 160). When the average excursion xavg[n] is greater than the threshold Eth, it means that the excursion of the diaphragm has been excessively large for a long time, which may lead to mechanical fatigue or damages of the diaphragm. Thus, the comparing module 158 outputs a control signal Ctrl to control the driving circuit 110 to reduce the gain of the amplifier.
In the embodiments above, the diaphragm is protected based on the average excursion of the diaphragm. In other embodiments, the diaphragm excursion and excursion averaging module 156 and the comparing module 158 may also protect the loudspeaker 120 based on an instantaneous peak value of the excursion of the diaphragm (e.g., calculating a peak value of the excursion of the diaphragm), so as to prevent the diaphragm from colliding with the casing of the loudspeaker 120 and hence from damages when the excursion of the diaphragm is excessively large. Similarly, when the instantaneous peak value of the excursion of the diaphragm is greater than the threshold, the processing unit 150 may control the driving circuit 110 to reduce the gain of the amplifier.
In addition to the device for calculating the excursion of a diaphragm of a loudspeaker, the present disclosure further discloses a method for calculating excursion of a diaphragm of a loudspeaker and for controlling the loudspeaker. Referring to
In step S410, a voltage signal and a current signal inputted to the loudspeaker are detected. The current signal is associated with the voltage signal that drives the loudspeaker. In practice, a current detector may be coupled between the loudspeaker and a driving circuit of the loudspeaker to detect the current signal.
In step S420, the voltage signal and the current signal of the loudspeaker are low-pass filtered to generate a low-pass filtered voltage signal and a low-pass filtered current signal, respectively. To obtain the DC resistance of a resistor of the loudspeaker, the driving circuit adds a low-frequency component (having a frequency lower than the lower limit of the audible range to the human ear) to the voltage signal. The purpose of this step is to obtain this low-frequency signal.
In step S430, the DC resistance of the loudspeaker is calculated according to the low-pass filtered voltage signal and the low-pass filtered current signal. The ratio of the low-pass filtered voltage signal to the low-pass filtered current signal is the DC resistance of the loudspeaker. Before calculating the ratio between the two, this step may first obtain temporal averages of the low-pass filtered voltage signal and the low-pass filtered current signal, e.g., root mean squares, to obtain more accurate DC resistance. Because the low-pass filtered voltage signal and the low-pass filtered current signal are both real numbers, this step is a real-number calculation, and so the DC resistance obtained is also a real number.
In step S440, a back EMF or a vibration velocity corresponding to the vibration of the diaphragm is calculated according to the voltage signal, the current signal and the DC resistance. With the voltage signal, the current signal and the DC resistance of the loudspeaker, the vibration velocity of the diaphragm of the loudspeaker can be calculated according to equation (4) (equivalently calculating the back EMF of the loudspeaker, as a ratio between the two being a constant value). Because the voltage signal, the current signal and the DC resistance are all real numbers, this step is a real-number calculation, and so the back EMF or the vibration velocity obtained is also a real number.
In step S450, the excursion of the diaphragm of the loudspeaker is calculated according to the back EMF or the vibration velocity. In this step, the excursion of the diaphragm is calculated according to equation (5); that is, the vibration velocity obtained in step S440 is multiplied by the sampling cycle of the voltage/current signal and then the sequential products are added up, hence obtaining the excursion of the diaphragm.
In step S460, the voltage signal is adjusted according to the excursion of the diaphragm. After the excursion of the diaphragm is obtained, a peak measurement or a calculation of an average value (e.g., an exponential average or a root mean square (RMS)) can be performed on the excursion of the diaphragm. According to the result of the peak measurement and/or the calculation of the average value, the voltage signal is adjusted (e.g., through adjusting the gain of the driving circuit) to protect the loudspeaker.
Since the calculations in steps S410 to S460 involve only calculations of real numbers but not imaginary numbers, and the present disclosure does not analyze the frequency components of the voltage signal and the current signal, the computation complexity is significantly reduced and the calculation time is reduced compared to the conventional method of calculating the impedance or admittance of the loudspeaker. Therefore, for the same hardware processing speed, with the low computation complexity of the present disclosure, information on the excursion of the diaphragm can be obtained more instantly.
Since people of ordinary skill in the art can appreciate the implementation detail and the modification thereto of the method disclosure of
The aforementioned descriptions represent merely the preferred embodiments of the present disclosure, without any intention to limit the scope of the present disclosure thereto. Various equivalent changes, alterations, or modifications based on the claims of the present disclosure are all consequently viewed as being embraced by the scope of the present disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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105107898 | Mar 2016 | TW | national |