Patent ID: 6480820
Filing Date: 2002-11-12
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
A method for the real-time transformation of an electrical signal representative of a waveform, comprising:(a) providing an electrical signal representative of sound; (b) performing a signal transformation on said electrical signal to compute a time-varying complex signal, (c) passing said time-varying complex signal through a number of bandpass filters to create a parallel set of time domain band limited complex signals; (d) computing a time stream of instantaneous frequency, phase angle and magnitude value sets for each of said parallel sets of time domain band limited complex signals; and (e) providing a cochlear stimulating device, including a set of electrodes that may be divided into subsets, wherein each subset is positioned on a different cochlear section and is assigned to a said time domain band limited complex signal corresponding in frequency band to said cochlear section; (f) stimulating one or more said subsets with a time stream of electrical pulse sets, each said pulse set being formed so as to cooperatively create an electromagnetic field that is centered on the portion of the cochlea that most closely corresponds to said instantaneous frequency value, and that is substantially limited to a region defined by said subset of electrodes.