Patent Application
20090279725
Embodiments of the present invention relate to radios, such as aircraft communication radios. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to aircraft communication radios that provide hearing loss compensation.
Airline workers, such as pilots and other aircraft cockpit personnel, are often exposed to noisy environments which can lead to increased hearing loss over time. Cockpit communications headsets generally interfere with the operation of standard hearing aids, often causing the hearing aid to squeal, or otherwise experience diminished performance, when in the presence of the headset earpieces. Thus, it is often difficult for pilots as well as other crew members, passengers, and the like, to hear in aircraft cockpit environments.
Embodiments of the present invention provide a distinct advance in the art of cockpit communication radios. More particularly, embodiments of the invention provide a cockpit communication radio system that provides hearing loss compensation.
In various embodiments, the system comprises a receiver, a sound reproduction device, and a hearing loss compensator. The receiver is generally located in the cockpit or equipment bay of an aircraft. The receiver receives radio frequency transmissions and converts the transmissions into audio frequency electrical signals. The sound reproduction device converts audio frequency electrical signals into audible sounds and generally includes one or two speakers to be positioned in close proximity to a pilot's ears. The hearing loss compensator, coupled with the receiver, provides audio frequency electrical signal gain at a plurality of frequencies and may include programmable electrical circuitry and memory elements. The programmable electrical circuitry may adjust the electrical signal gain at each of the plurality of frequencies and the memory elements may store settings for the gain at each of the plurality of frequencies. Settings for various age groups, gender-specific settings, or individual pilot and passenger settings may be stored in the memory elements.
This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Other aspects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the embodiments and the accompanying drawing figures.
Embodiments of the present invention is described in detail below with reference to the attached drawing figures, wherein:
The drawing figures do not limit the present invention to the specific embodiments disclosed and described herein. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the invention.
The following detailed description of the invention references the accompanying drawings that illustrate specific embodiments in which the invention can be practiced. The embodiments are intended to describe aspects of the invention in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention. Other embodiments can be utilized and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense. The scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
Hearing loss in the average human is shown in the frequency response graphs of
The data presented in these graphs is merely exemplary of the hearing loss problem, various factors, such as exposure to excessive sound levels for long periods of time, can influence the amount of sound loss a person experiences. For example, a person who spends most of his or her time in a generally quiet environment will likely have a much lower amount of hearing loss than is shown in the graphs of
A radio receiving system 10 as constructed in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention is shown in
The receiver 18, which may be located in an equipment or electronics bay, or other areas of an aircraft, may receive radio frequency (RF) communications from a transmitter, such as an air traffic control tower 24, other aircraft 16, as shown in
The sound reproduction device 20 generally converts audio frequency electrical signals into audible sound, usually within the audio frequency spectrum range listed above. The sound reproduction device 20 may include a headset that is typically worn on a person's head and includes at least one speaker 26 that aligns with the person's ear when the sound reproduction device 20 is worn. Often, the sound reproduction device 20 includes two speakers 26 that align with both ears. Furthermore, the sound reproduction devices 20 may have the two speakers 26 and a boom mounted microphone 28, as seen in
The hearing loss compensator 22 provides electrical signal gain at a plurality of frequencies in the audible spectrum. Various embodiments of the hearing loss compensator 22, as shown in
The user interface 32 may allow the pilot to interact with the hearing loss compensator 22, and may include an alphanumeric keypad or keyboard, a touch-input device integrated with or separate from the display 34 (e.g., a touchscreen), a trackball, buttons, switches, sliders, knobs, or the like. The user interface 32 may employ a microphone such as the sound reproduction device microphone (or a second microphone) and audio decoding circuitry to decode voice instructions from the pilot. Furthermore, the user interface 32 may comprise card readers, wired or wireless data transfer elements such as data ports, e.g. universal serial bus (USB), or removable memory, including the memory element 40, to enable the pilot and other devices or parties to remotely interface with the hearing loss compensator 22. The user interface 32 may be coupled with the bus 36 and all input from the pilot may be forwarded to the appropriate component of the hearing loss compensator 22 through the bus 36.
The display 34 generally displays information to the pilot, such information including status of power and functional components, current settings of functional components, audio spectrum output, audio spectrum settings, data from the user interface 32, and the like. The display 34 may comprise one or more individual light-emitting diodes (LEDs), one or more multi-segment (e.g. 7-segment) LEDs, color display elements (or alternatively, black and white or monochrome display elements) including, but not limited to, LCD (Liquid Crystal Diode), TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD, LEP (Light Emitting Polymer) or PLED (Polymer LED), and/or plasma display devices. The display 34 is generally of sufficient size to enable the pilot to easily view the display 34 to receive presented information while in transit.
The bus 36 generally acts as an interface between the components of the hearing loss compensator 22. The bus 36 may transfer data from one component to another. For example, through the bus 36, the memory element 40 may transfer programming information to the programmable electrical circuitry 42 or may transfer setting information to the display 34. The bus 36 may also transfer control information from one component to another. For example, the processing element 38 may send a control signal through the bus 36 to the memory element 40 to initiate a data transfer. Some portions of the bus 36 may include single-bit serial lines, other portions may include multi-bit parallel lines, and some segments of the bus 36 may include both serial and parallel implementations. The bus 36 may include metal conductor wires, cables, or printed circuit board (PCB) traces, or combinations thereof. The bus 36 may also include optical fiber cables, bundles, or other optical or electrical waveguides, or combinations thereof.
The processing element 38 may control the operation of the hearing loss compensator 22 by directing the transfer of data and control signals from one component to another and controlling the timing of various events in the hearing loss compensator 22. For example, based on user input, the processing element 38 may initiate a transfer of programming settings from the memory element 40 to the programmable electrical circuitry 42.
The processing element 38 may implement a computer program which performs some of the functions described herein. In various embodiments, the computer program comprises an ordered listing of executable instructions for implementing logical functions in the processing system. The computer program can be embodied in any computer-readable medium for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device, and execute the instructions. In the context of this application, a “computer-readable medium” can be any means that can contain, store, communicate, propagate or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-readable medium can be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semi-conductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific, although not inclusive, examples of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable, programmable, read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), a portable computer diskette, and a portable compact disk read-only memory (CDROM).
The processing element 38 may include microprocessors, microcontrollers, programmable intelligent computers (PICs), or the like. The processing element 38 may also include field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), or other programmable logic devices (PLDs), fully-custom or semi-custom application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or any other device that is described by one or more code segments of a hardware description language (HDL). Further, the processing element 38 may include combinations of any of the components listed.
The memory element 40 generally stores information for the operation of the hearing loss compensator 22. The memory element 40 may store programming information for one or more individual pilot, crew such as a co-pilot, flight engineer, ground crew, flight attendant, and the like or passengers, groups of pilots or passengers based on age and/or gender, or customized programming settings that may be entered in real time, as the pilot or passengers want to make small adjustments. The memory element 40 may include, for example, removable and non-removable memory elements such as random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), flash, magnetic, optical, universal serial bus (USB) memory devices, and/or other conventional memory elements, such as hard-disk drives.
The programmable electrical circuitry 42 generally provides audio frequency electrical signal gain at a plurality of frequencies in the audio frequency spectrum to compensate for hearing loss. The programmable electrical circuitry 42 may provide gain, or amplify the signal, at the levels and frequencies as depicted in the frequency response graphs of
Since the audio frequency response varies from person to person, individual response patterns that provide the appropriate amount of signal gain at various frequencies may be stored for a number of pilots, passengers, or other individuals in the memory element 40, as discussed above. Furthermore, audio frequency response patterns for any age (over 15) of both genders may be interpolated from the graphs of
The pilot may also be able to adjust the signal gain at various frequencies at any time through the user interface 32. The adjustments may be made by moving sliders, rotating knobs, punching numbers into a keypad, or combinations thereof. The changes may also be saved in the memory element 40.
In various embodiments, a profile, that includes an audio frequency response pattern for an individual pilot or passenger, may be stored on a portable storage device, such as the memory element 40, another memory stick or card, a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag, a cell phone, personal data assistant (PDA), or the like, which the pilot or passenger may carry on his person. The profile may be transferred to the hearing loss compensator 22 through the user interface 32 automatically, utilizing wireless data transfer elements, or manually, using USB ports, card readers, or the like.
The programmable electrical circuitry 42 may also comply with the standards and specifications of various government or official aviation-related organizations. For example, the programmable electrical circuitry 42 may comply with the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics specification DO-186B, which requires that the audio signal received must be within +/−6 dB of a certain level for the frequencies in the range of the human voice, which may include 100 Hz to 3000 Hz. Thus, the programmable electrical circuitry 42 may provide up to 12 dB of gain for various frequencies between 100 Hz and 3000 Hz. However, the programmable electrical circuitry 42 may provide amplification over any frequency range.
The programmable electrical circuitry 42 may include equalizers, amplifiers, operational amplifiers, low-pass filters, band-pass filters, mixers, combinations thereof, and the like. The circuitry 42 may be formed from analog components, digital components, discrete devices, digital signal processors (DSPs), FPGAs, PLDs, combinations thereof, and the like. Furthermore, the programmable electrical circuitry 42 may include microprocessors, microcontrollers, PICs, and the like that provide electrical signal gain by executing software running on said devices.
In certain embodiments, the hearing loss compensator 22 may receive audio frequency electrical signals from the receiver 18, as shown in
In other embodiments, the hearing loss compensator 22 may be integrated into the receiver 18, as shown in
In yet other embodiments, the hearing loss compensator 22 may be integrated in the sound reproduction device 20 as shown in
An exemplary method 800 of compensating for hearing loss in an aircraft cockpit 14 environment is illustrated in
Although the invention has been described with reference to the embodiments illustrated in the attached drawing figures, it is noted that equivalents may be employed and substitutions made herein without departing from the scope of the invention as recited in the claims.
Having thus described various embodiments of the invention, what is claimed as new and desired to be protected by Letters Patent includes the following:
