Sound-capture and listening system for head equipment in noisy e

Details Sound-capture and listening system for head equipment in noisy e Sound-capture and listening system for head equipment in noisy e

1997-09-26

2000-05-02

Chang, Vivian

Electrical audio signal processing systems and devices

Noise or distortion suppression

Peak limiting or pulsive noise compensation

381 72, H04B 1500

Patent

active

060581948

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sound-capture and listening system for head equipment in a noisy environment.
2. Discussion of the Background
In a very noisy environment, such as, for example, that prevailing in a cockpit of a military aircraft, the apparatuses for sound capture, restitution and processing of the voice are not optimized, and are even, mostly, poorly implemented. The radio communications between the crew and other speakers are of poor quality. The users communicate with several other speakers (other aircraft, ground stations, the other members of the crew, their own voice back again). These communications are monophonic, affected by interference, fairly unintelligible and are not hierarchized. If several sound alarms occur simultaneously, they are difficult to discriminate from one another. These poor communications, when added to the environmental noise, contribute significantly to the fatigue of crews, and may even harm their hearing. The helmets which they wear protect them hardly at all from such noise. The only means available to them to try to make these communications somewhat more intelligible are controls for adjusting sound level, this being far from satisfactory. The various apparatuses which implement these sound communications are dissimilar and their characteristics are not always completely compatible.


SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The subject of the present invention is a sound-capture and listening system for a helmet in a noisy environment, which makes it possible to establish the most intelligible communications possible and to optimize the exchanges of digital signals with other devices of the audiophone system to which this sound-capture and listening system may be linked.
The sound-capture and listening system for a helmet in a noisy environment in accordance with the invention includes, on the sound-capture side, at least one microphone followed by a sampling device, by a decimator, by a device for compensating for signal distortions arising within the whole of the upstream acoustic chain, and on the listening side, an interpolator followed by a device for compensating for the defects of audiometry of the operator and by an active noise reduction loop.


BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will be better understood on reading the detailed description of an embodiment, taken by way of non-limiting example and illustrated by the appended drawing in which:
FIGS. 1 and 2 are block diagrams of listening and sound-capture circuits, respectively, in accordance with the invention.


DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The invention is described below with reference to an aircraft audiophone system, in particular for a combat aircraft, but it is of course not limited to such an application, and can be implemented equally well in other types of vehicles (land or sea) and in fixed installations, in particular in very noisy surroundings, such as, for example, in metallurgical plants. The user of this system is, in the present case, the pilot of a combat aircraft, but there may of course be several simultaneous users, in particular in the case of a civil transport aircraft, devices specific to each user being provided in corresponding number.
The sound-capture and listening system of the invention has been represented in the drawing in the form of two modules 1 and 2 linked to a bus 3, however the system can of course be constructed as a single module grouping together these two modules 1 and 2.
The module 1 essentially includes a demultiplexer 4, an interpolator and customized summation device 5 of the sound reproduction types (conventional and/or spatialized, spatialized meaning reproduction making it possible to locate at least approximately--i.e. to within a few degrees--the spatial origin of the sounds heard), a device 6 for compensating for the audiometric defects of the operator (physiological rendition), a summator 7. This summator 7 sums the signals originating from the device 6 and from a p

REFERENCES:
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patent: 5594799 (1997-01-01), Herrmann
patent: 5661809 (1997-08-01), Chahabadi et al.
patent: 5673324 (1997-09-01), Kasser et al.

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