Directional hearing system
US5793875A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Apr 22, 1996 |
| Grant date | Aug 11, 1998 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 22, 2016 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04R2410/07
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A directional acoustic receiving system is constructed in the form of a necklace including an array of two or more microphones mounted on a housing supported on the chest of a user by a conducting loop encircling the user's neck. Signal processing electronics contained in the same housing receives and combines the microphone signals in such a manner as to provide an amplified output signal which emphasizes sounds of interest arriving in a direction forward of the user. The amplified output signal drives the supporting conducting loop to produce a representative magnetic field. An electroacoustic transducer including a magnetic field pickup coil for receiving the magnetic field is mounted in or on the user's ear and generates an acoustic signal representative of the sounds of interest. The microphone output signals are weighted (scaled) and combined to achieve desired spatial directivity responses. The weighting coefficients are determined by an optimization process. By bandpass filtering the weighted microphone signals with a set of filters covering the audio frequency range and summing the filtered signals, a receiving microphone array with a small aperture size is caused to have …
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.