Abstract
The purpose of these acoustical patent reviews is to provide enough information for a Journal reader to decide whether to seek more information from the patent itself. Any opinions expressed here are those of the reviewers as individuals and are not legal opinions. Patents are available via the internet at the USPTO website, and also using Google Patents.
Reviewers for this issue:
GEORGE L. AUGSPURGER, Perception, Incorporated, Box 39536, Los Angeles, California 90039
JOHN A. HOSSACK, Department of Biomedical, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908
LLOYD RICE, 11222 Flatiron Drive, Lafayette, Colorado 80026
ERIC E. UNGAR, Acentech, Incorporated, 33 Moulton Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
10,201,833: 43.30.Yj MODULAR PROJECTOR FOR MARINE SEISMIC SOURCE
Bruce Armstrong et al., assignors to Geospectrum Technologies Inc., PGS Geophysical AS
12 February 2019; filed 30 October 2014
This means for generating acoustic signals in the ocean for the purpose of seismic surveying at low frequencies (3 to 10 Hz) consists of a towed manifold that has a number of ports, each of which contains a vibration source. A source according to this patent consists of a sandwich made of two discs with a cavity between them, with the discs actuated by means of piezoelectric elements. The cavity communicates with a manifold via a conduit whose effective length can be adjusted by a motor so as to change the natural frequencies of the disk arrangement.—EEU
10,219,072: 43.38.Hz DUAL MICROPHONE NEAR FIELD VOICE ENHANCEMENT
Christopher Lee Sullivan, Jr. et al., assignors to Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America, Division of Panasonic Corporation of North America
26 February 2019; filed 27 July 2018
It is not easy to pick up an automobile driver's voice during hands-free telephone communication. If a headset is not worn then the alternative is to rely on fixed microphones in a noisy environment. This patent suggests that a pair of microphones can be located fairly close to the driver's head by mounting them in a wrap-around headrest. Real-time signal processing copes with head movement by compensating for relative delay and level between the two signals.—GLA
10,219,098: 43.38.Hz LOCATION ESTIMATION OF ACTIVE SPEAKER
Eli Tzirkel-Hancock et al., assignors to GM GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS LLC
26 February 2019; filed 18 September 2017
The illustration shows people seated in an automobile but they could just as well be seated around a conference table. In either situation their voices are picked up by an array of microphones. The goal is to identify the person talking at a given time so the microphone array can be steered to the desired location. (In the case of a video conference, the information is also used to steer the camera.) The method set forth in this patent establishes one microphone as a reference. Then, during a calibration procedure, relative transfer functions are measured and stored for each seating location. When someone talks, a voice sample is used to obtain another set of transfer functions for every microphone except the reference microphone. Ratios of transfer functions are then analyzed to identify the talker's location.—GLA
10,198,919: 43.38.Ja SYSTEM, APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR HAPTIC COMMANDS
Mitsuhiro Yamazaki et al., assignors to Lenovo (Singapore) PTE LTD.
5 February 2019; filed 28 August 2017
An otherwise conventional vibrator for a cell phone or other portable device has an “impact mode” and a “vibration mode”—i.e., one signal is shorter and more intense than the other. A two-level drive circuit supplies, “…a first driving voltage to the haptic actuator in response to the first haptic command and applies a second driving voltage larger than the first driving voltage to the haptic actuator in response to the second haptic command.” The novel feature may be a requirement for the two driving voltages to be generated by two separate DC-to-DC boosters.—GLA
10,212,519: 43.38.Ja ELECTRONIC FURNITURE SYSTEMS WITH INTEGRATED INTERNAL SPEAKERS
Shawn Nelson et al., assignors to THE LOVESAC COMPANY
19 February 2019; filed 10 November 2016
Since the very beginning of home audio reproduction inventors have concealed loudspeakers in side tables, lamp shades and picture frames. Another favorite is the audio chair, in which a listener can enjoy stereo music reproduction while relaxing. The chair described in this patent hides a separate subwoofer and comes complete with a removable slip cover.—GLA
10,206,037: 43.38.Lc AMPLIFIER SPEAKER DRIVE CURRENT SENSE
Mohit Chawla et al., assignors to TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
12 February 2019; filed 30 December 2016
The design of Class D (pulse width modulation) amplifiers continues to evolve. In Class D audio power amplifiers, current sensing may be required for feedback or loudspeaker protection, and this patent describes a clever method of measuring current through the loudspeaker. In a full bridge output circuit both terminals of loudspeaker 114 are switched between positive and negative voltage rails. Consequently, if current is measured with a conventional series resistor and differential amplifier, the differential amplifier must accommodate very high common-mode voltages. The alternative circuit shown has no common-mode voltage at all but it does require two sensing terminals and some way to combine their signals. Those requirements are met by control module 110 that includes a delta-sigma converter whose inputs are switched between the two pairs of terminals.—GLA
10,204,615: 43.38.Si NOISE-CANCELLING HEADPHONE
Koji Otsuka et al., assignors to Kabushiki Kaisha Audio-Technica
12 February 2019; filed 9 November 2017
This patent is unusual in that the Claims are much easier to understand than the long-winded Description of Embodiments. In the illustration, the headphone appears to be a conventional design in which a pair of earcups are joined by a headband. However, exterior sounds are captured by a microphone located under a concealed “sound collecting hole” at the top of housing 5 rather than the central area of the back plate—which is the configuration found in most noise-cancelling headsets. The patent includes several response plots showing that the top location is less directional. As a result, according to the patent, better overall noise cancellation can be achieved.—GLA
10,212,509: 43.38.Si HEADPHONES WITH AUDIO CROSS-CONNECT
George Francis Cardas
19 February 2019; filed 30 January 2018
Listening to two-channel stereo from a pair of loudspeakers is quite different than binaural headphone reproduction in which each ear hears only one channel. Commercial music recordings are optimized for loudspeaker listening, and numerous prior patents describe methods for converting stereo to binaural for headphone users. In this case, an RLC filter is included in the headphone wiring itself. Actually, the inventor prefers an embodiment in which a flexible tube provides the desired acoustical cross connection, but that embodiment is not included in the patent Claims.—GLA
10,219,063: 43.38.Si IN-EAR WIRELESS DEVICE WITH BONE CONDUCTION MIC COMMUNICATION
Victor Manuel Valenzuela and Damon Vincent Mercadante, assignors to Acouva, Inc.
26 February 2019; filed 10 April 2018
The earbud shown is one of a pair. Each has a microphone to pick up external sounds plus an inner bone conduction microphone to pick up the user's voice. The two earbuds are wirelessly connected through a built-in communications module. There is also a processing system, “…configured to identify the user based on a frequency profile shape of the user's voice and at least one of the first ambient external sounds and the second ambient external sounds.” The signals from the external microphones are then processed based on a frequency profile of the user's voice. A second patent is pending; hopefully it will clarify the inventor's goal.—GLA
10,217,451: 43.38.Vk MULTI-SPEAKER METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LEAKAGE CANCELLATION
Suketu Kamdar et al., assignors to DTS, Inc.
26 February 2019; filed 5 January 2018
Sophisticated TV sound bars use beam-forming to reflect left and right surround sound off room walls, as shown. In practice the sound beams are fairly broad, and the desired acoustic imaging is contaminated by direct sound from the array. This patent explains how a leakage-cancelling signal can be generated by center speaker 414 to increase the audibility of the side channels.—GLA
10,206,055: 43.38.Vk METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR GENERATING SPATIALIZED AUDIO DURING A VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE
Samuel C. Mindlin et al., assignors to Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc.
12 February 2019; filed 28 December 2017
In virtual reality gaming there are situations in which two players may share the same virtual space and may want to communicate with each other. Suppose player 304 spots player 302 and says, “This stairway is not big enough for both of us.” To maintain the illusion, player 302 should hear the voice emanate from the other avatar, not as a separate intercom connection. The patent sets forth a method for spatializing an audio source anywhere within the virtual environment. Suitable head-related transfer functions for left and right ears are selected from a library of transfer functions based on the relative distance and orientation of the virtual source.—GLA
10,219,096: 43.38.Vk SEAT-OPTIMIZED REPRODUCTION OF ENTERTAINMENT FOR AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
Christian Volkmar and Imre Csonka, assignors to Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft
26 February 2019; filed 10 August 2018
When this vehicle is parked or in the self-driving mode, front seats 19a,19b can be rotated to face the rear. The patent explains how signals to various loudspeakers can be automatically routed to deliver high-quality surround sound with either seating configuration.—GLA
10,196,785: 43.40.Tm DEVICE FOR DAMPING VIBRATIONS OF A BRIDGE
Uwe Starossek et al., assignors to Technical University Hamburg-Harburg, TuTech Innovation GmbH
5 February 2019; filed 8 April 2015
The device described in this patent is intended to suppress the galloping vibrations of bridges, particularly long-span suspension bridges, resulting from wind blowing across the bridges. A device according to this patent consists in essence of short “wings” (airfoil shaped structures) attached to the bridge via support structures that extend laterally from the bridge deck.—EEU
10,204,616: 43.50.Ki DISTANT MICROPHONES FOR NOISE CANCELLATION
Ilan Malka et al., assignors to GM GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS LLC
12 February 2019; filed 14 August 2017
This patent describes a method for active noise cancellation in an automobile cabin. In this case, the sensing microphone 106 and the loudspeaker used for cancellation 110 are both some distance from the location in which cancellation occurs 112. This can be done because applicable transfer functions are known in advance. The patent Claims require that an “aggregate” sound including engine noise be used for modeling.—GLA
10,170,129: 43.72.Ar APPARATUS FOR ENCODING A SPEECH SIGNAL EMPLOYING ACELP IN THE AUTOCORRELATION DOMAIN
Tom Baeckstroem et al., assignors to Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
1 January 2019; filed 3 April 2015
Standard linear prediction (LP) uses a 10 or 12-coefficient infinite impulse response (IIR) filter to represent the formant structure of each speech frame. A code excited LP (CELP) system uses some sort of encoding to represent the remaining speech signal not encoded by the LP filter. An algebraic CELP system devises an algebraic code to represent the remaining signal, so that only the formula is needed, not the actual signal. Finally, the patent describes in detail several ways by which the ACELP algorithm can be optimized, reducing the computational time and cost to perform the speech encoding.—DLR
10,148,808: 43.72.Ja DIRECTED PERSONAL COMMUNICATION FOR SPEECH GENERATING DEVICES
Jon Campbell et al., assignors to MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
4 December 2018; filed 9 October 2015
The patent addresses some of the issues and difficulties in communicating with a person with severe speech disabilities who is using some type of synthesizer or other speech playback device. Such difficulties may involve the slow pace of communication, inability to convey emotions, or the inability to direct the speech output to a particular individual in the vicinity. The patented system would involve a second computing system, to be used by the other individual in the conversation. The two connected computing devices may use a variety of techniques, such as gaze detection, completion of partially expressed items, or shortcut keys to assist in the communication.—DLR
10,146,772: 43.72.Kb LANGUAGE TRANSLATION WITH HEAD-WORN COMPUTING
Ralph F. Osterhout et al., assignors to Osterhout Group, Inc.
4 December 2018; filed 24 April 2017
The patent describes a head-worn computing (HWC) system that, in many ways, would be possible with current technology. One of the HWC features would be a speech processing system, the primary features of which would be translation. Another of the described features would be wireless communication with other such systems. In this case, language translation could occur seamlessly, each user hearing only the desired language. The patent devotes only a few paragraphs to the language facility, being much more concerned with other abilities of the device.—DLR
10,152,476: 43.72.Kb WEARABLE DEVICE AND TRANSLATION SYSTEM
Tomokazu Ishikawa et al., assignors to Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
11 December 2018; filed 16 March 2016
The patent describes a wearable speech translation device. One of the participants in a multi-language conversation would wear or carry the device in such a way that one microphone would primarily detect the speech of one of the users, while the other microphone would primarily detect the other. Similarly, two speakers would primarily direct their output to one of the two conversants. Various means of achieving a suitable degree of dealing with the two signals are discussed. If the wearer of the device used a headset, such separation would be considerably simplified. Perhaps the scheme would work as long as both parties do not speak at the same time.—DLR
10,152,719: 43.72.Kb VIRTUAL PHOTOREALISTIC DIGITAL ACTOR SYSTEM FOR REMOTE SERVICE OF CUSTOMERS
Ratnakumar Navaratnam
11 December 2018; filed 6 July 2017
The patent describes a synthetic sales agent, which may be implemented in the form of a display or holographic image of the sales person. What is not clear is that the description appears to alternate between the use of a machine to drive the system, versus a human behind the scenes to present a more helpful interface. Several cases are discussed in which a human agent is available to provide a more engaging interaction.—DLR
10,152,965: 43.72.Kb LEARNING PERSONALIZED ENTITY PRONUNCIATIONS
Antoine Jean Bruguier et al., assignors to Google LLC
11 December 2018; filed 3 February 2016
This “pronunciation aid” is a speech playback system set up to provide correct pronunciations for items, such as names or local pronunciation variants that differ from the usual version of a word. The device, which would include speech recognition and synthesis capabilities for voice interaction, is described as a personalized pronunciation reference. In the figure, the device detects the user's variant pronunciation of a name being entered, corrects it, and calls the intended party.—DLR
10,157,626: 43.72.Kb VOICE AFFECT MODIFICATION
Jaime Elliot Nahman et al., assignors to HARMAN INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIES, INCORPORATED
18 December 2018; filed 20 January 2016
The patented speech communication system would include an ability to detect and modify the emotional content of a user's speech while transmitting that speech to another person. Some versions of the system could include one or more cameras or sensors, such as heart rate or skin conductance sensors, to aid in evaluating the emotional state of a user. Once evaluated, the user's emotional state could be either decreased or increased, according to system settings, for transmission to the receiving party.—DLR
10,147,418: 43.72.Ne SYSTEM AND METHOD OF AUTOMATED EVALUATION OF TRANSCRIPTION QUALITY
Oana Sidi and Ron Wein, assignors to VERINT SYSTEMS LTD.
4 December 2018; filed 14 August 2017
An automatic speech transcription evaluation system is described which would provide evaluations of transcription quality for any or all output of a transcription system. The system could be used to determine the overall quality of a given system, or could be used to monitor transcription output in order to detect changes in system quality over time. The evaluator appears to be basically a second recognition system to operate in parallel with the primary recognizer. Much of the patent deals with the comparison methods to be used.—DLR
10,147,423: 43.72.Ne CONTEXT-AWARE QUERY RECOGNITION FOR ELECTRONIC DEVICES
Munir Nikolai Alexander Georges et al., assignors to Intel IP Corporation
4 December 2018; filed 29 September 2016
Many current speech recognition systems require either a button press or a specific phrase, such as “Hello, computer,” in order to activate recognition. This patent describes an arrangement to eliminate that “start-up” action. The core recognizer would be followed by two other modules, typically running simultaneously, described as the Intent Recognizer and the Recipient Recognizer. One or both of these modules may be implemented by on-line facilities, involving Internet transmission of the spoken materials. Security issues are discussed briefly, but not mentioning the case where the security breach may involve the assisting organization.—DLR
10,147,428: 43.72.Ne COMPUTER SYSTEMS EXHIBITING IMPROVED COMPUTER SPEED AND TRANSCRIPTION ACCURACY OF AUTOMATIC SPEECH TRANSCRIPTION (AST) BASED ON A MULTIPLE SPEECH-TO-TEXT ENGINES AND METHODS OF USE THEREOF
Tejas Shastry et al., assignors to Green Key Technologies LLC
4 December 2018; filed 30 May 2018
Some current speech recognition systems rely on multiple recognizer engines in order to provide adequate accuracy of the recognized output. The patented system would optimize the operation of such systems, improving response speed and accuracy by monitoring each recognizer output and shutting off portions of the system once suitable recognized output has been achieved.—DLR
10,147,442: 43.72.Ne ROBUST NEURAL NETWORK ACOUSTIC MODEL WITH SIDE TASK PREDICTION OF REFERENCE SIGNALS
Sankaran Panchapagesan et al., assignors to Amazon Technologies, Inc.
4 December 2018; filed 29 September 2015
Some current speech recognition systems attempt to deal with speech in the presence of interfering noise by depending on one or more models trained in the presence of noise. Such systems have a disadvantage in the event of types of noise for which they were not trained. The patented system would use a different approach, referred to as source-separation, based on separating the speech from any interference and then performing the recognition on a relatively clean speech signal. This approach would be trained using multiple microphones, with at least one microphone receiving mostly speech, one or more receiving mostly noise, and one or more receiving a speech-noise mixture. Multiple deep neural networks would be trained to discover the similarities and differences between the various microphone signals.—DLR
10,152,968: 43.72.Ne SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SPEECH-BASED MONITORING AND/OR CONTROL OF AUTOMATION DEVICES
Russell L. Agrusa et al., assignors to Iconics, Inc.
11 December 2018; filed 27 June 2016
A speech recognition system is described which would be set up specifically for use in controlling industrial equipment, such as in manufacturing, utility plants, construction, etc. Such systems typically involve specific terms and pronunciations unique to the type of equipment or process in use. Special requirements for configuring and training a speech recognition system for such environments are described in some detail.—DLR
10,152,971: 43.72.Ne SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ADVANCED TURN-TAKING FOR INTERACTIVE SPOKEN DIALOG SYSTEMS
Jason D. Williams and Ethan Selfridge, assignors to NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
11 December 2018; filed 23 June 2016
The patent describes a series of conditions which can be tracked during the recognition of an utterance, allowing the system to predict particular states in the progress of an utterance. States such as topic changes, completion of a description or concept, start of a new subject of conversation, can be used by the system to provide a more natural dialogue, for example, allowing the system to begin preparation of a reply before an ongoing utterance has ended. The patent describes certain partial recognition states, referred to as “pinch nodes” and “terminal nodes” which are used to define internal recognizer states which occur during an ongoing dialogue.—DLR
10,152,973: 43.72.Ne SPEECH MODEL RETRIEVAL IN DISTRIBUTED SPEECH RECOGNITION SYSTEMS
Bjorn Hoffmeister et al., assignors to Amazon Technologies, Inc.
11 December 2018; filed 16 November 2015
The patented speech recognition system provides options for downloading alternate speaker models and/or past recognition data prior to or just when beginning to analyze an utterance. During a recognition process, if it appears to be advantageous to try a different recognition model, such a model can immediately be downloaded and the recognition step can be rerun. In addition, when appropriate usage information is available, a particular past model or data set can be downloaded in preparation for an upcoming session. Examples of specific models could include gender, age ranges, regional accents, or combinations of these.—DLR
10,157,272: 43.72.Ne SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR EVALUATING STRENGTH OF AN AUDIO PASSWORD
Lae-Hoon Kim et al., assignors to QUALCOMM Incorporated
18 December 2018; filed 4 February 2014
As computational systems are more widely used and particularly, speech entry systems, it becomes important to have voice password protection. However, it may not be clear to a user when a given spoken item would be suitable as a password less likely to be subject to imitation. The patented system would evaluate a candidate password and return an indication of the strength of the speech sample provided for use as a spoken password. The system would determine how likely the analysis of the provided material would result in measures such as cepstral coefficients that would commonly occur in other speech samples. Analyses could be compared using multiple speaker models, such as generic or speaker-specific models.—DLR
10,157,610: 43.72.Ne METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ACOUSTIC DATA SELECTION FOR TRAINING THE PARAMETERS OF AN ACOUSTIC MODEL
Vivek Tyagi and Aravind Ganapathiraju, assignors to Felix Immanuel, Wyss
18 December 2018; filed 21 December 2017
The patent presents methods for determining the suitability of particular speech samples for use in training a recognition system. According to one such system, the speech sample could be analyzed as a sequence of triphones, i.e., phoneme triplets. Each such triphone would be rated according to the likelihood that it could occur in a large collection of analyzed speech data.—DLR
10,163,440: 43.72.Ne GENERIC VIRTUAL PERSONAL ASSISTANT PLATFORM
Osher Yadgar et al., assignors to SRI International
25 December 2018; filed 5 January 2017
The patent describes a task-independent speech recognition framework, set up so as to be customized by the addition of domain-specific grammar and vocabulary modules. In addition to speech, the input system is planned to be able to handle text, gestures, or scanned image inputs. The goal is that a user could set up the system without needing to deal with the technicalities of speech processing. Perhaps the central component of the system is a reasoning module, which sorts out various conflicts that can arise from multiple meanings of phrases across various domains.—DLR
10,170,100: 43.72.Ne SENSOR BASED TEXT-TO-SPEECH EMOTIONAL CONVEYANCE
Kevin G. Carr et al., assignors to International Business Machines Corporation
1 January 2019; filed 24 March 2017
The described communication system is said to include the ability to convey emotional content in a text message. After a long paragraph citing the difficulties in doing this, the patent proceeds to describe a communication link that would do just that. At one point, the sending end is said to include the collection of sensory readings, including heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, perhaps from a wearable device. Facial expressions and other data may be available from a video image of the talker. At another point, the patent speaks of transmitting audio data. From there, it was not clear just what was to be covered under the patent laws.—DLR
10,170,114: 43.72.Ne SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ADAPTIVE PROPER NAME ENTITY RECOGNITION AND UNDERSTANDING
Harry William Printz et al., assignors to Promptu Systems Corporation
1 January 2019; filed 13 November 2017
The patent describes a speech recognition system that would include the ability to recognize items that would normally be beyond any standard recognition vocabulary. The system would do this by detecting when the error rate for a portion of an utterance was greater than expected. The offending section of the input signal would then be marked for special handling by a second recognizer, using a different approach. In the example given, the user is located in an area of San Francisco and first asks for a list of “nearby Indian restaurants.” Given this clue, the system is thus primed to be able to decode the following request, “Tell me how to get to Guddu de Karahi.” The figure walks through the resulting series of steps.—DLR
10,170,115: 43.72.Ne LINEAR SCORING FOR LOW POWER WAKE ON VOICE
Tobias Bocklet et al., assignors to Intel Corporation
1 January 2019; filed 12 July 2018
The phrase “wake on voice” refers to the ability of a speech recognition system to power down, saving energy when not in use. But a voice command would start the system. The first requirement is that a minimal sound collection section must operate at all times. If any sound is detected, an additional portion of the system would be activated, which would perform a preliminary analysis. If the detected sound appears to be speech, the full recognizer would start. Finally, a special key phrase model would compare frames of the decoded signal to specific sequences of frames as defined for the wake-up utterance. The patent provides details of the key phrase system.—DLR
10,194,889: 43.80.Vj METHODS, SYSTEMS AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCTS FOR MULTI-RESOLUTION IMAGING AND ANALYSIS
Peter J. Hollender and Nicholas B. Bottenus, assignors to Duke University
5 February 2019; filed 23 April 2014
In the context of Acoustic Radiation Force (ARF) shear wave elasticity imaging, for diagnostic applications, a transverse propagation velocity estimate is used to estimate mechanical properties of a tissue region. In this invention, methods for determining a mechanical parameter (typically elasticity related) for a sample region include generating a tissue displacement in the target region and analyzing resulting displaced tissue origin echo signals at multiple levels of spatial resolution. In this way, an optimal result is obtained by using the most appropriate level of resolution according to each particular region of interest.—JH
10,197,670: 43.80.Vj ULTRASONIC MEASUREMENT APPARATUS, ULTRASONIC DIAGNOSTIC APPARATUS, AND ULTRASONIC MEASUREMENT METHOD
Hiroyuki Masuda et al., assignors to Seiko Epson Corporation
5 February 2019; filed 29 October 2015
This invention relates to the use of multiple pulse-echo firings, each with different beam former parameters, in a diagnostic ultrasound imaging system to develop a set of multiple resolution signal components. These involve, where feasible, plane wave transmit propagations and spherical wave propagations. The resulting signals are combined to develop an improved resolution final image.—JH
10,201,326: 43.80.Vj ULTRASONIC DIAGNOSTIC APPARATUS AND METHOD OF OPERATING THE SAME
Hee-chul Yoon et al., assignors to SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
12 February 2019; filed 23 June 2014
In the context of a diagnostic ultrasound imaging system, a method is described that involves transmitting two sets of ultrasonic signals to an object, receiving corresponding signals and displaying corresponding ultrasonic images where each image corresponds to different cross-sections within the tissue being imaged.—JH
10,206,045: 43.80.Vj SOUND TRANSDUCER FOR INSERTION IN AN EAR
Dominik Kaltenbacher et al., assignors to Vibrosonic GmbH
12 February 2019; filed 3 October 2016
This invention describes a sound transducer, used as a hearing aid, for insertion in the human ear. The device comprises a membrane, comprising a carrier layer and a piezoelectric layer, wherein the membrane structure is subdivided into two or more segments that are typically oriented in radial directions (as if a cake were being cut).—JH
10,206,659: 43.80.Vj UNIMORPH-TYPE ULTRASOUND PROBE AND METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING THE SAME
Takatsugu Wada et al., assignors to FUJIFILM Corporation
19 February 2019; filed 25 June 2015
This invention relates to a unimorph-type ultrasound probe, in a piezoelectric micro-machined ultrasound transducer (pMUT) format, for medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging. In this design, the device is covered, on the side facing tissue being imaged, with an organic resin having an acoustic impedance in the range from 1.5 × 106 kg/m2 ⋅ s to 4 × 106 kg/m2 ⋅ s.—JH
10,209,223: 43.80.Vj REAL-TIME FUSION OF ULTRASOUND AND EDDY CURRENT DATA DURING NON-DESTRUCTIVE EXAMINATION
Jeffrey R. Kollgaard et al., assignors to The Boeing Company
19 February 2019; filed 26 May 2015
This invention relates to the design of a dual eddy current/ultrasound transducer array for use in nondestructive evaluation (NDE) applications. By designing the eddy current coils and transducer array elements to be essentially coaligned, specifically by placing the eddy current coils between the ultrasound imaging elements and the object under test, it becomes readily possible to obtain spatially aligned images of an object under test using each of eddy current and ultrasound imaging.—JH
10,213,189: 43.80.Vj ECHOGENIC ENHANCEMENT FOR A NEEDLE
Shawn Ryan et al., assignors to BOSTON SCIENTIFIC SCIMED, INC.
26 February 2019; filed 14 November 2016
Needle visualization presents a common challenge when attempting to guide needle insertion into tissue under medical ultrasonic imaging guidance. An unmodified needle has a specular quality, meaning that for most angles it is invisible because reflected echo signals do not return to the transducer array. Various enhancements have been proposed over many years to improve needle visualization. In this patent, there are annular grooves formed in the needle surface and various of these grooves have different angles of groove surface orientation to minimize the likelihood of a complete blind spot being generated by the lack of any surface giving rise to an echo visible to the ultrasound transducer and system.—JH
