Patent ID: 11878169
Assignee: SOMATEK
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC A  G  H | IPC A  G  H

Claim 14:
15. A system for processing a sequence of spoken words into a sequence of sets of nerve stimuli, delivered via nerve stimulators arrayed on a particular user's skin, each set of nerve stimuli being a symbolic representation of a phoneme of a particular user's spoken language, the system comprising:
a converter configured to receive a sequence of spoken words and to digitize electrical signals representative of the sequence of spoken words;
a speech recognizer configured to receive the digitized electrical signals and generate a sequence of phonemes representative of the sequence of spoken words, wherein a number of possible phonemes for a particular user is based on a spoken language used by the particular user;
a mapper configured with a position of each nerve stimulator in an array and wherein the mapper is further configured to assign a symbolic stimulus representation or a symbolic combination of stimuli representation to each phoneme derived from a particular user's range of perceivable stimuli, each symbolic representation comprising between one and a total number of stimuli so as to generate a map, wherein each phoneme has a corresponding stimulus or set of stimuli, and wherein the mapper is further configured to determine a range of stimuli, based on the array's range of deliverable stimuli, such that each stimulus in the range is perceptible to the particular user at a selected power level, wherein first rules implemented on the mapper constrain a set of stimuli within the determined range of stimuli;
a transformer configured to receive the sequence of phonemes representative of the sequence of spoken words and the map and wherein the transformer is further configured to generate a sequence of stimulus definitions corresponding to the sequence of phonemes; and
a receiver configured to obtain and convert the sequence of stimulus definitions into one or more electrical waveforms used to stimulate a part of the particular user's body according to the sequence of stimulus definitions such that the sequence of spoken words can be discerned by the particular user.