Patent Application
20180234782
The present invention relates to annunciators used in structures such as buildings, stadiums, theaters, malls, airports, mass-transit stations, and dwellings for broadcasting announcements to persons. More particularly, the present invention relates to annunciators simultaneously broadcasting multilingual announcements to persons located in structures such as buildings, stadiums, theaters, malls, airports, mass-transit stations, and dwellings.
Persons located in clearly defined enclosed structures such as buildings, stadiums, theaters, malls, airports, mass-transit stations, and dwellings can currently receive audio announcements. These announcements are typically tailored to specific events such as: 1) the sale of a current item at a particular retail store at the mall; 2) the arrival of a bus at a certain gate at a mass-transit bus station; 3) the commencement of the next movie showing at a theatre; 4) the location of a lost child at a stadium; and 5) an emergency of some sort. In all these instances, announcements are currently rendered in one language at one time. If there is a need to render the same announcement but in different languages, the announcements are then rendered in serial starting with one language, followed by the second language, followed by the third language, etc. until all desired languages have been rendered as announcements. In the circumstance when there is no time restriction on rendering numerous multilingual announcements in a serial manner, persons will hear their particular announcement in their particular language in the order of the multilingual announcements being rendered serially. However, in the circumstance when there is a time restriction on rendering numerous multilingual announcements, such as in an emergency situation, and time is of the essence, rendering numerous multilingual announcements in a serial manner can take too long. In an emergency situation, time can mean the difference between life and death. As such, having the ability to simultaneously broadcast multilingual announcements in a temporally parallel manner versus a serial manner could save precious time in emergency situations conveying critically and temporally important announcements such as: 1) the building is on fire, everyone must evacuate the building immediately; 2) there is an active shooter situation in the main lobby, do not enter the main lobby; and 3) there is a tornado approaching the building, take cover immediately.
Communication of aural messages involves a listener's capability to localize and discriminate auditory events, to distinguish the effect of when and where auditory events including initial sounds and subsequent echoes, and to focus on one of many auditory events occurring simultaneously. The ability to localize auditory events separated in three-dimensional space enables listeners to discriminate the auditory events. The Duplex theory suggests that listeners experience both interaural time differences, or time delays when sounds reach one ear before the other, and interaural intensity differences, or intensity differences in sounds reaching the ears as a result of head orientation. Further, the shapes of the outer ears (the pinea) also affect sound localization whereby the listener determines the location of the source of the sound. Localization is also dependent upon physical characteristics such as shoulder echo, head motion, early echo response, reverberation, atmospheric absorption, bone conduction, and prior knowledge by a listener of the sound source. The precedence effect relates to when and where auditory events are first perceived. This influences the listener's belief as to the direction of origination of the sounds. Precedence helps listeners distinguish between original sounds and subsequent echoes or reverberation. Further, listeners generally have an ability to detect, discriminate, and focus on one selected voice communicating sounds among many such voices. This ability may be described as the cocktail party effect, whereby a listener focuses on one of many voices. Factors affecting the ability to filter unwanted speech or noise and thus aid in focusing on a single voice include spatial separation, modulation of speech or sounds, and visual cues. For example, studies have shown that listeners could more readily focus on a desired voice among many when loudspeakers were disposed at 90° azimuth relative to the listener. Other discrimination effects are noted with low- and high-filtering, such as at 1.6 kHz. U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,623 describes a device that spatializes messages communicated to listeners wearing headphones to four virtual auditory positions, so that the listeners can more easily focus on one of the four simultaneously presented voice channels. However, such is impractical for open-field environments such as enclosed structures and requires processing of monophonic sounds in real-time with digital signal processors to create spatially separate virtual sounds. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved apparatus and method of simultaneously broadcasting multilingual announcements to persons located in structures such as buildings, stadiums, theaters, malls, airports, mass-transit stations, and dwellings. It is to such that the present invention is directed.
The present invention meets the need in the art by providing an apparatus for spatialized communication of announcements to persons located in structures such as buildings, stadiums, theaters, malls, airports, mass-transit stations, and dwellings in at least two different languages simultaneously, comprising at least two sound-emittive speakers spaced-apart within an enclosed structure and disposed in opposing relation for communicating stored signals that are representative of at least one announcement in at least two different languages. The apparatus simultaneously communicates the signals representative of the announcement for each one of the at least two languages to a respective one of the speakers, whereby the announcement, being communicated by each one of the at least two speakers in one of the at least two languages, is spatializedly discernable to persons in each of the communicated languages.
In another aspect of the present invention, the apparatus further comprises a modulator for modifying the announcements to further distinguish the announcement in the languages from one another. The apparatus comprises low-pass and high-pass filters to modify selectively the tone of the announcements. The apparatus comprises the means to make the announcements in a first gender voice and a second gender voice selectively to further distinguish the announcement in the languages from one another.
In another aspect, the present invention provides a method of spatialized communication of announcements in different languages simultaneously to persons in an enclosed structure, comprising the steps of:
(a) providing a plurality of speakers spaced-apart and disposed in facing opposing relation in an enclosed structure;
(b) placing in a storage device signals representative of at least one announcement in a plurality of languages differing from each other;
(c) communicating simultaneously the signals representative of the at least one announcement in each one of the languages to the speakers in an enclosed structure;
whereby the announcement, being communicated by the speakers with each speaker communicating one of the languages, is spatializedly discernable to persons in each of the communicated languages.
In another aspect of the present invention, the method further comprises the step of modulating the announcement in at least one of the languages to further distinguish the announcement from the announcement in the other of the languages. The method comprises filtering the announcement selectively with a low-pass filter and a high-pass filter to modify the tone of the announcements. The method comprises making the announcements selectively in a first gender voice and a second gender voice to further distinguish the announcement in the languages from one another.
Objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become apparent from a reading of the following detailed description of the invention and claims in view of the appended drawings.
Referring now in more detail to the drawings in which like parts have like identifiers,
With reference to
Generally, area separation speaker configurations are limited by the dimensions and acoustics of the particular area. As the distance increases among the speakers 12, 14, the intensity or volume of the sound generated by the speakers must increase to ensure that persons remote from the speaker hear the sounds from the speakers. A point is eventually reached however, depending on acoustic and dimensional factors when the intensity of the sound from one speaker saturates and attenuates the sound from the other speaker at the remote positions in the space 15. Acoustic factors include the materials used in the interior of the space (sound absorbent or reflective), whether the persons are standing or sitting, ambient noises such as desktop computers, heaters, air conditioners, and the like. Absorbent obstructions to the sound result in faster saturation of the sounds. Generally, in applications in which the length of the space 15 exceeds the width by about a factor of 5 or more, persons find it increasingly difficult to hear the sounds from the remote speaker.
Further discrimination of the messages in the differing languages is provided in accordance with the present invention by filtering the tone of the sounds from a selected speaker or by providing gender-varied message signals. With respect to
According to the present invention, further discrimination is achieved by providing combined tonal and gender separation. For example, the message in one language is low-pass filtered and presented with a male voice; a second language is high-pass filtered and presented with a male voice; a third language is low-pass filtered and presented with a female voice; and a fourth language is high-pass filtered and presented with a female voice. Combinations of the filters, filtering points, and gender variations enable maximizing the sound separation within the particular area of an enclosed structure 40, 60 and spaces 15 while facilitating the person's understanding of the message in his or her particular language with the other languages becoming to that person merely part of the ambient noise.
It is thus seen that an apparatus for communicating announcements to persons in enclosed structures is provided, together with a method of simultaneously broadcasting multilingual announcements to persons located in structures such as buildings, stadiums, theaters, malls, airports, mass-transit stations, and dwellings. While this invention has been described in detail with particular reference to the preferred embodiments thereof, the principles and modes of operation of the present invention have been described in the foregoing specification. The invention is not to be construed as limited to the particular forms disclosed because these are regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive. Moreover, modifications, variations, and changes may be made by those skilled in the art without departure from the spirit and scope of the invention as described by the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62459047 | Feb 2017 | US |
