Patent ID: 7155389

Claim:
A speech to touch translator comprising: an acoustic sensor for detecting word sounds and transmitting the word sounds; a sound amplifier for receiving the word sounds from said acoustic sensor and raising the sound signal level thereof, and transmitting the raised sound signal; a speech sound analyzer for receiving the raised sound signal from said sound amplifier and determining, (a) amplitude thereof, (b) frequency content thereof, (c) relative loudness/emphasis thereof, (d) suprasegmental information thereof, including (i) rhythm, (ii) rising of voice pitch and (iii) falling of voice pitch, (e) intonational contours thereof, including vocal pitch accompanying production of a sentence, and (f) time sequence of (a)–(e); converting (a)–(e) to data in digital format, and transmitting the data in the digital format; a phoneme sound correlator for receiving the data in digital format and comparing the data with a phoneticized alphabet to find a digital match for the word sound characteristics; a phoneme library in communication with said phoneme sound correlator and containing all phoneme sounds of the selected phoneticized alphabet, characterized by amplitude, frequency content, loudness, suprasegmental and intonation superimposed on the phoneme sounds; a match detector in communication with said phoneme sound correlator and said phoneme library and operative to sense a predetermined level of correlation between an incoming phoneme and a phoneme resident in said phoneme library; a phoneme buffer for (i) receiving phonetic phonemes from said phoneme library in time sequence, and for (ii) receiving from said speech sounds analyzer data indicative of the relative loudness, amplitude, frequency content, emphasis, suprasegmental information, intonational information, and time sequences thereof, and for (iii) coding the phonetic phonemes from said phoneme library and attaching thereto appropriate information as to relative loudness, supra-segmental and intonational characteristics superimposed upon the amplitude and frequency characteristics, for use in a format to actuate combinations of pressure fingers, each combination being correlated with a phoneme; and an array of actuators, each for initiating movement of one of the pressure fingers, the actuators being operable in combination, each combination being representative of a particular phoneme, the pressure fingers being adapted to engage the body of an operator, such that the feel of a combination of pressure fingers is interpretable by the operator as a word sound with superimposed information presented tactually to enable the operator to identify word source.