A hearing protection and situational awareness system includes a wearable device, speakers, one or more beamformers, a microphone array, and a computation unit. The system generates a three-dimensional (3D) binaural sound for enhanced situational awareness; provides hearing protection by active noise cancelation; provides hearing enhancement by automatic gain control; and performs background noise reduction and cancelation. The system performs automated sound detection, identification, and localization, with automated voice assistance, and facilitates clear two-way communications. Each beamformer(s) outputs a sound track associated with a sound captured by the microphone array in a direction(s) of an acoustic beam pattern(s). The computation unit combines filtered sound tracks generated using head-related transfer function (HRTF) filters into left and right sound channels to drive the speaker(s) in left and right hearing members of the wearable device, respectively, thereby generating a 3D binaural sound including cues of the sound source directions.
H04R 5/027 - Spatial or constructional arrangements of microphones, e.g. in dummy heads
G10L 15/22 - Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialog
G10L 25/51 - Speech or voice analysis techniques not restricted to a single one of groups specially adapted for particular use for comparison or discrimination
A61F 11/14 - Protective devices for the ears external, e.g. earcaps or earmuffs
H04R 5/033 - Headphones for stereophonic communication
G10K 11/178 - Methods or devices for protecting against, or for damping, noise or other acoustic waves in general using interference effectsMasking sound by electro-acoustically regenerating the original acoustic waves in anti-phase
H04S 7/00 - Indicating arrangementsControl arrangements, e.g. balance control
A sound generation system and related method include a user interface device and a processing device to obtain a specification of a three-dimensional space, obtain one or more sound tracks each comprising a corresponding sound signal associated with a corresponding sound source, present, in a user interface, representations representing one or more listeners and the one or more sound sources corresponding to the one or more sound signals in the three-dimensional space, responsive to a configuration of the locations of the one or more listeners or the locations of the one or more sound sources in the three-dimensional space in the user interface, determine filters based on the configuration and pre-determined locations of one or more loudspeakers, and apply the filters to the one or more sound signals to generate filtered sound signals for driving the one or more loudspeakers.
A specification of a mesh of filters may be defined on a grid in a three-dimensional space presented in a user interface. A plurality of sound tracks may be determined, wherein each of the sound tracks is associated with a corresponding sound source that may be represented in the three-dimensional space along with a listener. Responsive to user configuration of a position of the listener and/or positions of the sound sources in the three-dimensional space, a plurality of filters may be selected based on the mesh of filters and the positions of the sound sources and the listener in the three-dimensional space. Each of the filters may be applied to a corresponding one of the plurality of sound tracks to generate a plurality of filtered sound tracks and the three-dimensional sound may be generated based on the plurality of filtered sound tracks.
A method and system for enhancing a target sound signal from multiple sound signals is provided. An array of an arbitrary number of sound sensors positioned in an arbitrary configuration receives the sound signals from multiple disparate sources. The sound signals comprise the target sound signal from a target sound source, and ambient noise signals. A sound source localization unit, an adaptive beamforming unit, and a noise reduction unit are in operative communication with the array of sound sensors. The sound source localization unit estimates a spatial location of the target sound signal from the received sound signals. The adaptive beamforming unit performs adaptive beamforming by steering a directivity pattern of the array of sound sensors in a direction of the spatial location of the target sound signal, thereby enhancing the target sound signal and partially suppressing the ambient noise signals, which are further suppressed by the noise reduction unit.
G01S 3/805 - Systems for determining direction or deviation from predetermined direction using adjustment of real or effective orientation of directivity characteristics of a transducer or transducer system to give a desired condition of signal derived from that transducer or transducer system, e.g. to give a maximum or minimum signal
G01S 3/801 - Direction-finders for determining the direction from which infrasonic, sonic, ultrasonic, or electromagnetic waves, or particle emission, not having a directional significance, are being received using ultrasonic, sonic, or infrasonic waves Details
G01S 5/22 - Position of source determined by co-ordinating a plurality of position lines defined by path-difference measurements
H04R 1/40 - Arrangements for obtaining desired frequency or directional characteristics for obtaining desired directional characteristic only by combining a number of identical transducers
A method and system for enhancing a target sound signal from multiple sound signals is provided. An array of an arbitrary number of sound sensors positioned in an arbitrary configuration receives the sound signals from multiple disparate sources. The sound signals comprise the target sound signal from a target sound source, and ambient noise signals. A sound source localization unit, an adaptive beamforming unit, and a noise reduction unit are in operative communication with the array of sound sensors. The sound source localization unit estimates a spatial location of the target sound signal from the received sound signals. The adaptive beamforming unit performs adaptive beamforming by steering a directivity pattern of the array of sound sensors in a direction of the spatial location of the target sound signal, thereby enhancing the target sound signal and partially suppressing the ambient noise signals, which are further suppressed by the noise reduction unit.
G01S 3/805 - Systems for determining direction or deviation from predetermined direction using adjustment of real or effective orientation of directivity characteristics of a transducer or transducer system to give a desired condition of signal derived from that transducer or transducer system, e.g. to give a maximum or minimum signal
G01S 3/801 - Direction-finders for determining the direction from which infrasonic, sonic, ultrasonic, or electromagnetic waves, or particle emission, not having a directional significance, are being received using ultrasonic, sonic, or infrasonic waves Details
H04R 1/40 - Arrangements for obtaining desired frequency or directional characteristics for obtaining desired directional characteristic only by combining a number of identical transducers
A method and a system for simultaneously generating configurable three-dimensional (3D) sounds are provided. A 3D sound processing application (3DSPA) in operative communication with a microphone array system (MAS) is provided on a computing device. The MAS forms acoustic beam patterns and records sound tracks from the acoustic beam patterns. The 3DSPA generates a configurable sound field on a graphical user interface using recorded or pre-recorded sound tracks. The 3DSPA acquires user selections of configurable parameters associated with sound sources from the configurable sound field. The 3DSPA dynamically processes the sound tracks using the user selections to generate a configurable 3D binaural sound, surround sound, and/or stereo sound. The 3DSPA measures head related transfer functions (HRTFs) in communication with a simulator apparatus that simulates a human's upper body. The 3DSPA generates the binaural sound by processing the sound tracks with the HRTFs based on the user selections.
A method and a wearable communication system for personal face-to-face and wireless communications in high noise environments are provided. A noise cancellation device (NCD) operably coupled to a wireless coupling device (WCD) includes a speech acquisition unit, an audio signal processing unit, one or more loudspeakers, and a communication module. The NCD receives voice vibrations from user speech via a contact microphone and a second microphone and converts the voice vibrations into an audio signal. The NCD processes the audio signal to remove noise signals and enhance a speech signal contained in the audio signal. A loudspeaker emits the speech signal during face-to-face communication. The NCD transmits the speech signal to a communication device via the WCD and receives an external speech signal from the communication device during wireless communication. With the NCD, the signal intelligibility and signal-to-noise ratio can be improved, for example, from −10 dB to 20 dB.
A color correction system includes an identical first color chart (FCC) and a second color chart (SCC), and a color correction unit (CCU). The FCC and the subject are positioned in view of a source image capture device (SICD) at a source location. The SCC and a display unit are positioned in view of a destination image capture device (DICD) at the destination location. The SICD captures and transmits source image content (SIC) of the subject and the FCC to the CCU at the destination location via a network. The DICD captures destination image content (DIC) of the SCC and the SIC displayed on the display unit. The CCU generates calibration parameters by comparing the FCC extracted from the SIC and/or the DIC, with the SCC extracted from the DIC, and corrects the SIC of the subject and gamma parameters on the display unit using the generated calibration parameters.
This invention presents a noise cancellation device for improved personal face-to-face and radio communications in high noise environments. The device comprises speech acquisition components, an audio signal processing module, a loudspeaker, and a radio interface. With the noise cancellation device, the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved by as much as 30 dB.
A method and device for processing signals representing speech or audio via a plurality of filters that approximate behaviors of the basilar membrane of human cochlea. Each of the plurality of filters is formed from a mother filter via the dilation and a shift in time and has the similar impulse response of the basilar membrane to the frequency band for which the filter represents. Any process can be conducted and any feature can be extracted in the domain of the filters' outputs for applications, such as noise reduction, speech synthesis, coding, and speech and speaker recognition. Processed signals can be synthesized back to the time domain via an inverse cochlear transform.
