Patent ID: 6470214
Filing Date: 2002-10-22
Classification: A61N,H04B

Abstract:
A method of encoding an input audio signal a(t) to produce a double sideband output signal having a &ohgr;c carrier frequency, which when transmitted to the head of a receiving subject, will by the radio frequency hearing effect induce a thermal-acoustic signal in the bone/tissue material of the head that replicates the input audio signal and is conducted by the bone/tissue structure of the head to the inner ear where it is demodulated by the normal processes of the cochlea and converted to nerve signals which are sent to the brain, thereby enabling intelligible speech to be perceived by the brain as any other nerve signal from the cochlea, the method comprising:applying an input audio signal a(t) to an audio pre-distortion filter with an As(f) filter function to produce a first output signal a(t)As(f); adding a very low frequency bias A to the first output signal to produce a second output signal a(t)As(f)+A; applying the second output signal to a square root processor to produce a third output signal (a(t)As(f)+A)Â½; applying the third output signal to a balanced modulator to produce a double sideband output signal (a(t)As(f)+A)Â½ sin(&ohgr;ct), where &ohgr;c is the carrier frequency; and transmitting the double sideband output signal to the head of the receiving subject.