Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7778430?ie=ISO-8859-1&dq=5,966,702
Timestamp: 2015-07-05 02:59:06
Document Index: 651222070

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 3', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'art 3']

Patent US7778430 - Flesh conducted sound microphone, signal processing device, communication ... - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsA microphone is installed on a surface of the skin immediately below the mastoid of a human to implement a sound sampling method including sampling at least one of a non-audible murmur, a whisper, or an audible sound. The microphone includes a condenser microphone portion having a pair of diaphragm electrodes...http://www.google.com/patents/US7778430?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7778430 - Flesh conducted sound microphone, signal processing device, communication interface system and sound sampling methodAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS7778430 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 10/585,135PCT numberPCT/JP2005/000444Publication dateAug 17, 2010Filing dateJan 11, 2005Priority dateJan 9, 2004Fee statusPaidAlso published asUS20090175478, WO2005067340A1Publication number10585135, 585135, PCT/2005/444, PCT/JP/2005/000444, PCT/JP/2005/00444, PCT/JP/5/000444, PCT/JP/5/00444, PCT/JP2005/000444, PCT/JP2005/00444, PCT/JP2005000444, PCT/JP200500444, PCT/JP5/000444, PCT/JP5/00444, PCT/JP5000444, PCT/JP500444, US 7778430 B2, US 7778430B2, US-B2-7778430, US7778430 B2, US7778430B2InventorsYoshitaka Nakajima, Makoto Shozakai, Sakae FujimakiOriginal AssigneeNational University Corporation NARA Institute of Science and TechnologyExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (15), Non-Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (6), Classifications (12), Legal Events (3) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetFlesh conducted sound microphone, signal processing device, communication interface system and sound sampling method
US 7778430 B2Abstract
A microphone is installed on a surface of the skin immediately below the mastoid of a human to implement a sound sampling method including sampling at least one of a non-audible murmur, a whisper, or an audible sound. The microphone includes a condenser microphone portion having a pair of diaphragm electrodes and a contact portion which has an acoustic impedance close to the acoustic impedance of soft tissues in a body of a speaker, which is stuck tightly to the condenser microphone portion with no intervening air space, and which conducts an input speech from a skin surface of the speaker to the condenser microphone.
1. A microphone apparatus, comprising:
a condenser microphone portion having a pair of diaphragm electrodes; and
a contact portion having an acoustic impedance matching an acoustic impedance of soft tissues in a body of a speaker, the contact portion being affixed to the condenser microphone portion with no intervening air space and conducting input speech vibrations from a skin surface of the speaker to the condenser microphone portion,
wherein the apparatus is adapted for installation on a portion of the skin surface behind an auricle, over a sternocleidomastoid muscle, and below a mastoid of a skull,
wherein the microphone samples, as the input speech vibrations, at least one of:
a non-audible murmur comprising vibration sounds that are articulated by a variation in resonance filter characteristics associated with motion of a phonatory organ that is not a regular vibration of vocal cords, the vibration sounds being generated when a respiratory sound that is not understandable by persons other than the speaker is transmitted through internal soft tissues;
a whisper comprising audible vibration sounds that are generated without regularly vibrating the vocal cords; or
audible vibration sounds that are generated by regularly vibrating the vocal cords, and including one or more of a voice having a volume below that which is understandable by persons other than the speaker, an audible murmur, a teeth gnashing sound, and a tongue clucking sound.
4. The microphone according to claim 2 or claim 3, wherein the hardness of said hardened silicone rubber is not higher than 30(Shore A).
6. The microphone according to claim 1, wherein the shape of said contact portion is such that the sectional area thereof becomes gradually smaller from said condenser microphone portion toward said skin surface.
7. The microphone according to claim 1, wherein the shape of said contact portion is such that the sectional area thereof becomes gradually larger from said condenser microphone portion toward said skin surface.
8. The microphone according to claim 1, wherein said condenser microphone portion is disposed submerged in said contact portion.
12. The microphone according to claim 1, wherein it is configured integrally with a head wearing object to be fitted to the head of a human, such as spectacles, headphones, an earphone, a cap or a helmet.
13. A signal processing device which processes an input signal sampled by the microphone according to claim 1.
14. A communication interface system which uses for communication the input signal processed by the signal processing device according to claim 13.
15. A sound sampling method by use of a microphone that comprises a condenser microphone portion having a pair of diaphragm electrodes, and a contact portion having an acoustic impedance matching an acoustic impedance of soft tissues in a body of a speaker, the contact portion being affixed to the condenser microphone portion with no intervening air space and conducting input speech vibrations from a skin surface of the speaker to the condenser microphone portion, the sound sampling method comprising:
installing the microphone on a portion of the skin surface behind an auricle, over a sternocleidomastoid muscle, and below a mastoid of a skull;
sampling, as the input speech vibrations, at least one of:
a whisper comprising audible vibrations sounds that are generated without regularly vibrating the vocal cords; or
audible vibration sounds generated by regularly vibrating the vocal cords, and including one or more of a voice having a volume below that which is understandable by persons other than the speaker, an audible murmur, a teeth gnashing sound, or a tongue clucking sound. Description
The present invention relates to a microphone, a signal processing device, a communication interface system and a sound sampling method, and more particularly to a microphone for sampling vibratory sounds which result from the conduction of non-audible respiratory sounds of infinitesimal quantities (the quantity of expiration and that of inspiration) by soft tissues in the body (such as flesh) (hereinafter referred to as “flesh-conduction”) not involving regular vibrations of the vocal cords articulated by variations in resonance filter characteristics accompanying the motions of phonatory organs and not intended to be heard by persons around (hereinafter referred to as “non-audible murmur” (NAM)) and a signal processing device, a communication interface systemand a sound sampling method using it.
The rapidly spreading use of mobile telephones has given rise to problems of call manner in the means of public transport, such as trains and buses . Mobile telephones are the same in basic structure of interface as analog telephones of the past; since they sample air-conducted voices, speaking over a mobile telephone in an environment where other persons are present, there arises the problem of annoying them. Everybody must have experienced displeasure of being forced to hear another person's conversation by mobile telephone in train.
An object of the present invention, attempted to solve the problems of the background art described above, is to provide a flesh conducted sound microphone, a signal processing device, a communication interface system and a sound sampling method which, when non-audible murmurs are to be obtained with maximum possible fidelity from the skin surface over the sternocleidomastoid muscle immediately below the mastoid of the skull, that is, in the lower part of the skin behind the auricle, can restrain the attenuation of the high frequency region attributable to mismatching of acoustic impedance on the interface between the skin surface over soft tissues in the body, which are mainly liquid, and the air space, which is gaseous, and obtain the spectrum of bands at or above 2kHz.
A microphone according to the present invention is installed on a surface of the skin on the sternocleidomastoid muscle immediately below the mastoid of the skull, that is, in the lower part of the skin behind the auricle, intended to sample at least one of a non-audible murmur articulated by a variation resonance filter characteristics associated with motion of the phonatoroy organ, the non-audible murmur not involving regular vibration of the vocal cords, the non-audible murmur being a vibration sound generated when an externally non-audible respiratory sound is transmitted through internal soft tissues, a whisper which is audible but is uttered without regularly vibrating the vocal cords, a sound uttered by regularly vibrating the vocal cords and including a low voice and a murmur, and inputting speech such as a teeth gnashing sound and a tongue clucking sound. The microphone comprises a condenser microphone portion having a pair of diaphragm electrodes and a contact portion which has an acoustic impedance close to the acoustic impedance of soft tissues in the body, is stuck tightly to thecondenser microphone portion with no intervening air space and conducts the input speech from the skin surface to the condenser microphone. Such a configuration makes it possible to restrain attenuation of the high frequency region attributable to mismatching of acoustic impedance.
A signal processing device according to the present invention which subjects to signal processing input signals from a microphone to be installed on a surface of the skin on the sternocleidomastoid muscle immediately below the mastoid of the skull, that is, in the lower part of the skin behind the auricle, intended to sample at least one of a non-audible murmur articulated by a variation in resonance filter characteristics associated with motion of the phonatory organ, the non-audible murmur not involving regular vibration of the vocal cords, the non-audible murmur being a vibration sound generated when an externally non-audible respiratory sound is transmitted through internal soft tissues, a whisper which is audible but is uttered without regularly vibrating the vocal cords, a sound uttered by regularly vibrating the vocal cords and including a low voice and a murmur, and input speech such as a teeth gnashing sound and a tongue clucking sounds, the microphone comprising a condenser microphone portion having a pair of diaphragm electrodes and a contact portion which has an acoustic impedance close to the acoustic impedance of soft tissues in the body, is stuck tightly to the condenser microphone portion with no intervening air space and conducts the input speech from the skin surface to the condenser microphone. The use of such a signal processing device makes it possible to restrain attenuation of the high frequency region attributable to mismatching of acoustic impedance.
A sound sampling method according to the present invention by which a microphone samples at least one of a non-audible murmur articulated by a variation in resonance filter characteristics associated withmotion of the phonatoryorgan, the non-audible murmur not involving regular vibration of the vocal cord, the non-audible murmur being a vibration sound generated when an externally non-audible respiratory sound is transmitted through internal soft tissues, a whisper which is audible but is uttered without regularly vibrating the vocal cords, a sound uttered by regularly vibrating the vocal cords and including a low voice and a murmur, and input speech such as a teeth gnashing sound and a tongue clucking sound, comprising:
causes the input speech to be conducted from the skin surface to a condenser microphone having a pair of diaphragm electrodes and stuck tightly to the condenser microphone portion with no intervening air space via a contact portion whose acoustic impedance is matched to an acoustic impedance close to the acoustic impedance of soft tissues in the body, and
In short, the present invention concerns use of non-audible murmurs for communication. Non-audible murmurs uttered without regular vibrations of the vocal cords are articulated by a variation in resonance filtercharacteristics associated with motions of articulatory organs including the tongue, lips, jaw and soft palate substantially similarly to normal speech uttered by regularly vibrating the vocal cords, and undergo flesh-conduction.
It is preferable for the viscosity of the silicone rubber composition at 23� C. to be not less than 100 cP, normally 100 to 10,000,000 cP, and particularly 1,000 to 10,000 cP. It is preferable to use an addition reaction-setting organo-polysiloxane as hardened silicone rubber, the preferable range of (E) Silica fine powder is 10 to 60 weight parts, and the preferable range of (F) organo-hydrogen polysiloxane is 1 to 60 weight parts. Incidentally, it is preferable for the hardness of the hardened silicone rubber to be not more than 30(Shore A).
FIG. 5 is a sectional view showing the configuration of a first embodiment of the microphone 1-1, which constitutes the essential part of the present invention. The microphone 1-1 shown in the diagram has a configuration in which a contact portion 1 a of hardened soft silicone rubber is provided in the sound collecting portion of a condenser microphone part 3, and other parts of the condenser microphone part 3 than the sound collecting portion are housed in a hard frame 1 e. The condenser microphone part 3 has two diaphragm electrodes 3 a and 3 b, and leads 1 g for leading out the received vibratory sounds as electric signals.
Air is present in an external noise preventing space 1 f between the frame 1 e and a condenser microphone part 3. By surrounding the condenser microphone part 3 with the hard frame 1 e and disposing the external noise preventing space 1 f, external noise can be prevented from coming in. To add, a hard material such as resin can be used as the material of the frame 1 e. The skin 4 a is the skin over the sternocleidomastoid muscle immediately below the mastoid of the skull, that is, in the lower part of the skin behind the auricle. Within this skin 4 a there are an oral cavity 4 b, mucus 4 c, a connective tissue/fat 4 d, a muscle 4 e, a blood vessel 4 f and a bone 4 g. The use of such a configuration results in the presence of the contact portion 1 a between the diaphragm electrode 3 b, which is one of the two diaphragm electrodes constituting the condenser microphone part 3, and the surface of the skin 4 a. And this contact portion 1 a conducts non-audible murmurs from the oral cavity 4 b to the condenser microphone part 3. As the contact portion 1 a in this example is formed of hardened soft silicone rubber having an acoustic impedance close to that of soft tissues in the body, when non-audible murmurs are conducted, attenuation of the high frequency region due to acoustic impedance mismatching can be restrained.
The reflecting plate 1 i is formed of, for instance, a metal. This reflecting plate 1 i acts as a reflector to reflect non-audible murmurs conducted by the contact portion 1 d. According to the configuration shown in the diagram, the reinforcing portion 1 h of hardened hard silicone rubber is disposed in the part which is the external noise preventing space in the third embodiment, and the metallic reflecting plate 1 i is disposed on the boundary between the contact portion 1 d of hardened soft silicone rubber and the reinforcing portion 1 h of hardened hard silicone rubber. Such a configuration causes non-audible murmurs conducted from soft tissues in the body to the contact portion 1 d to be reflected inward on the internal face of the reflecting plate 1 i and to concentrate on the portions of the diaphragm electrodes 3 a and 3 b of the condenser microphone part 3. Therefore, the non-audible murmurs can be obtained in a greater amplitude. FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a spectrogram that can be obtained by this embodiment. As shown in the diagram, a spectrum of or above 2 kHz is obtained.
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