US 11,792,590 B2
Determining and adapting to changes in microphone performance of playback devices
Kurt Thomas Soto, Ventura, CA (US); Connor Kristopher Smith, New Hudson, MI (US); Roberto Maria Dizon, Somerville, MA (US); Patrick Kevin McPherson, Somerville, MA (US); and Charles Conor Sleith, Waltham, MA (US)
Assigned to Sonos, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA (US)
Filed by Sonos, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA (US)
Filed on Mar. 12, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/249,776.
Application 17/249,776 is a continuation of application No. 15/989,715, filed on May 25, 2018, granted, now 10,959,029.
Prior Publication US 2021/0204082 A1, Jul. 1, 2021
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04R 29/00 (2006.01); G10L 15/08 (2006.01); G10L 15/22 (2006.01); H04R 1/40 (2006.01); H04R 3/00 (2006.01); H04R 3/04 (2006.01)
CPC H04R 29/005 (2013.01) [G10L 15/08 (2013.01); G10L 15/22 (2013.01); H04R 1/406 (2013.01); H04R 3/005 (2013.01); H04R 3/04 (2013.01); G10L 2015/088 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A network microphone device (NMD) comprising:
a microphone array comprising a plurality of individual microphones;
a network interface;
one or more processors; and
a computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the NMD to perform a method comprising:
receiving an audio input via the individual microphones;
producing output microphone signals from each of the individual microphones based on the audio input;
capturing a voice input based on at least one of the output microphone signals;
deriving frequency-domain sound data for each of the individual microphones based on the output microphone signals;
after capturing the voice input, sending, via the network interface, the voice input to one or more remote computing devices associated with a voice assistant service (VAS)
receiving, at the NMD, a response from a remote evaluator based on the frequency-domain sound data, the response (1) identifying one of the individual microphones and (2) indicating that the identified microphone has an aberrant signal; and
modifying a beamforming algorithm of the network microphone device to at least partially compensate for the aberrant signal.