Hearing protection and situational awareness system
US11890168B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 21, 2023 |
| Grant date | Feb 6, 2024 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Mar 21, 2043 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04S2420/01
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
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.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.