Interesting Patents: About GoPro’s Noise Cancelling Drones
Last month, we took a look into Sony’s drone patent application, which outlines a control apparatus and method for a virtual noise cancellation barrier through a networked system of drones.
This week, a new noise cancellation patent was granted for GoPro with a take on noise cancellation.
About the Patent
Taking camera shots from drones has become a common practice among videographers. The ability to capture a bird’s-eye view of an area provides a videographer with an excellent way to document a venue of an event or get an unobstructed view from above the crowd. However, one limitation of taking videos on drones is limited camera audio due to the sound of the drone. In this week’s patent, GoPro discloses a system to provide noise cancellation for an aerial vehicle. The system to achieve this noise cancellation includes an audio signal filter that utilizes operational condition input parameters from components of the vehicle.
WHAT THE INVENTION WOULD DO
The system implements a microphone coupled to an audio signal filter that utilizes operational condition input parameters from vehicle components. These parameters act as a baseline of noise (i.e. vibrational and air noise) from the audio signal. The audio signal filter combines the analysis of vehicle component operational conditions and distances of the components from the microphone to filter the noise information from the operation of the drone.
One important aspect of the patent is the wide variety of ways the operational condition of the vehicle components can be monitored: velocity, acceleration, thermal information, motor speed, and many more. The system describes a way to further identify noise-generating components and further determine the noise information to be processed by the audio signal filter. With the ability to identify and process the additional noise sources the system can generate a baseline noise profile for the vehicle to be used by the audio filter. This baseline provides the user with a general starting point to further tune the noise parameters filtered by the system.
WHY THE PATENT IS INTERESTING
One problem with drones, especially in videography settings is the noise caused by the operation of the drone renders any audio captured from the drone useless, especially when the audio of the surroundings can be a very important part of what is trying to be captured. In this situation the noise from the operation of the drone represented a significant hurdle to these types of users. The implementation of an audio signal filter that utilizes control parameters from the operation of the vehicle demonstrates an innovative way to pair two systems together creating an innovative approach to solve this particular problem. Written by John DeStefano, Technical Advisor
and Lauren Hawksworth, Marketing Administrator
June 1, 2021