A first seat noise control device corrects sound collected by a microphone to sound at a listening position of a user seated on a first seat, generates a cancel sound that cancels, at the first seat, the sound of a second seat audio source output from a second seat speaker by using an adaptive filter, and outputs the cancel sound from a first seat speaker. A second seat noise control device corrects the sound collected by the microphone to sound at the listening position of the user seated on the second seat, generates a cancel sound that cancels, at the second seat, the sound of a first seat audio source output from the first seat speaker using an adaptive filter, and outputs the cancel sound from the second seat speaker.

A system for generating silent zones at a listening position comprises a first loudspeaker disposed at a first position and configured to radiate sound that corresponds to a sound signal. A first microphone picks up noise radiated by a noise source to the listening position and generates a first microphone signal. A second loudspeaker disposed at a second position that radiates sound. A second microphone that generates a second microphone signal. A third microphone disposed at a third position that generates a third microphone signal. An active noise cancellation (ANC) controller that receives the third microphone signal and at least one of the first and second microphone signals and that provides a loudspeaker input signal. A distance between the third position and the first position equals a distance between the third position and the second position such that the first, second and third microphones form corners of an isosceles triangle.

With respect to a noise reduction device using a speaker and a microphone corresponding to each seat in a vehicle to reduce a noise in each seat, the noise reduction device includes, a signal processing unit configured to generate a canceling sound that reduces a noise at an ear of an occupant in a predetermined seat by using an auxiliary filter, an operation setting unit configured to disable operations of a speaker and a microphone corresponding to each empty seat in the vehicle, and an auxiliary filter setting unit configured to change a setting value of the auxiliary filter used by the signal processing unit to generate the canceling sound in accordance with the number of occupants in seats other than the predetermined seat, the seats affecting the noise in the predetermined seat.

Seats that include sound cancelation systems are described. An example vehicle bench seat has a first backrest, a first speaker, a second backrest, a second speaker, a central portion, and a seat base. The first speaker is disposed within the first backrest and the second speaker is disposed within the second backrest. Each of the first and second speakers emit primary sound waves and secondary sound waves. The secondary sound waves of the first speaker are 180 degrees out of phase with the primary sound waves of the first speaker and the secondary sound waves of the second speaker are 180 degrees out of phase with the primary sound waves of the second speaker. The central portion includes channels that direct the secondary sound waves emitted by the first and second speakers into the vehicle cabin to cancel undesired primary sound waves.

A method performed by an audio system that includes a headset. The method identifies a cushion that is coupled to a headset housing of the headset in which a speaker is integrated therein, produces a reference microphone signal from a reference microphone of the headset, selects an active noise cancellation (ANC) filter based on the identified cushion, filters the reference microphone signal with the ANC filter to produce an anti-noise signal, drives the speaker with the anti-noise signal, in response to driving the speaker, produces an error microphone signal from an error microphone of the headset, and performs an adaptive ANC function to adapt the ANC filter based on the reference microphone signal and the error microphone signal.

A device for reducing crosstalk in an audio system that has first and second pairs of loudspeakers and first and second audio sources. The device is connected to each audio source and to at least the first pair of loudspeakers. The device includes a module for acquiring first audio signals from the first source and second audio signals from the second source, a module for determining crosstalk reduction filters resulting from a loudspeaker of the second pair, a module for calculating corrective signals, by applying the reduction filters to the second audio signals, and a module for generating corrected audio signals for the first pair, obtained from the first audio signals and corrective signals. Each reduction filter is obtained from transfer functions, each representing an acoustic path between a loudspeaker and a user's ear.

A first seat noise control device corrects sound collected by a microphone to sound at a listening position of a user seated on a first seat, generates a cancel sound that cancels, at the first seat, the sound of a second seat audio source output from a second seat speaker by using an adaptive filter, and outputs the cancel sound from a first seat speaker. A second seat noise control device corrects the sound collected by the microphone to sound at the listening position of the user seated on the second seat, generates a cancel sound that cancels, at the second seat, the sound of a first seat audio source output from the first seat speaker using an adaptive filter, and outputs the cancel sound from the second seat speaker.

A vehicle system includes a controller that is configured to (a) store a plurality of passenger profiles regarding passengers of a vehicle where each of the plurality of passenger profiles include pre-stored identifying characteristics of a respective passenger associated therewith, (b) acquire passenger identifying data regarding a present passenger in the vehicle, (c) identify a respective passenger profile associated with the present passenger from the plurality of passenger profiles based on the passenger identifying data corresponding with the pre-stored identifying characteristics of the respective passenger profile, (d) control a speaker positioned within the vehicle based at least in part on the respective passenger profile to emit noise-canceling sound waves to generate a noise suppression zone to suppress sound waves perceived by the present passenger, (e) acquire movement data regarding movement of the present passenger within the vehicle, and (f) dynamically adjust the noise suppression zone based on the movement data.

An audio system for a vehicle including a plurality of personal sound zones, each personal sound zone comprising a plurality of microphones, an audio controller, and a plurality of speakers. The system is configured to allow the occupants of a vehicle to experience their own dedicated sound environment without the sound from one dedicated sound environment interfering with the sound from another dedicated sound environment. The system includes features for controlling the audio of each dedicated sound environment, including passing audio from one dedicated sound environment to another dedicated sound environment.

Two subsystems, each including a microphone, a speaker, a canceling sound-generating adder, an error-computing adder, and two adaptive filters and two auxiliary filters that accept two noises as input, are provided in correspondence with two cancellation positions. Each canceling sound-generating adder adds together the outputs from the adaptive filters and outputs the result to the speaker of each subsystem. Each error-computing adder adds together the output from the microphone of the subsystem and the output from the auxiliary filter of the subsystem, and the result is treated as the error of the adaptive filters of each subsystem. A transfer function is learned in advance and set in each auxiliary filter such that each error computed by each error-computing adder becomes zero (0) when a transfer function in which each noise is canceled at each cancellation position in a predetermined standard acoustic environment is set in each adaptive filter.