Acoustic device, information collection system, information collection method, and program

Abstract

An acoustic device according to the present invention comprises an open-ear housing, a speaker, one or more microphones, a measurement unit, and an extraction unit. The speaker is disposed on the concha cavity side of the housing. The one or more microphones are disposed in the housing. The measurement unit collects sound based on the predetermined signal by the microphones. The extraction unit extracts information on the shape of the ear on the basis of the sound collected by the measurement unit. An information collection system according to the present invention further comprises an analysis device provided with a model generation unit. The model generation unit generates a model for outputting information on the shape of the ear when information based on a sound signal is inputted.

Description

Acoustic device, information collection system, information collection method, and program

[0001] The present invention relates to an open-ear type acoustic device, an information collection system, an information collection method, and a program for an open-ear type acoustic device.

[0002] Non-Patent Document 1 is known as an example of an investigation into whether sound recognition can be performed using in-ear earphones, headphones, and mobile phones with microphones.

[0003] Ton HM Akkermans, Tom AM Kevenaar, Daniel WE Schobben, "Acoustic ear recognition for person identification", DOI: 10.1109 / AUTOID.2005.11.

[0004] However, acoustic authentication using canal-type earphones is based solely on acoustic features of the ear canal. Acoustic authentication using headphones that cover the ear results in complex characteristics of the collected sound signal due to the influence of reverberation between the headphones and the pinna, making it difficult to analyze the shape of the ear canal and pinna. Acoustic authentication using a mobile phone is difficult to hold the mobile phone to the ear so that the microphone is positioned in the same position. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain information about the natural shape of the pinna and ear canal using canal-type earphones, headphones, and mobile phones. The present invention aims to provide an acoustic device that can extract information about the shape of the ear.

[0005] The acoustic device of the present invention comprises an open-ear housing, a speaker, one or more microphones, a measurement unit, and an extraction unit. The speaker is located on the cavity of the concha side of the housing. The one or more microphones are located in the housing. The measurement unit uses the microphone to pick up sound based on a predetermined signal. The extraction unit extracts information about the shape of the ear based on the sound picked up by the measurement unit.

[0006] The information collection system of the present invention includes an acoustic device and an analysis device. The analysis device includes a recording unit and a model generation unit. The recording unit records information based on a sound signal picked up by a microphone in association with information about the shape of the ear to which the acoustic device is attached. The model generation unit generates a model that outputs information about the ear shape when information based on the sound signal is input, based on the sound signal picked up by the microphone and recorded in the recording unit, and the information about the ear shape associated with the sound signal.

[0007] The acoustic device of the present invention has an open-ear housing, and a microphone located on the housing picks up sound from a speaker located on the concha side of the housing. Unlike canal-type earphones, it can collect sound that is affected not only by the ear canal but also by the shape of the auricle, including the concha. Unlike headphones that cover the ear, it can significantly reduce the influence of reverberation between the acoustic device and the auricle. Compared to mobile phones, it is easier to place the speaker and microphone in the same position. Therefore, information about the shape of the ear can be extracted.

[0008] FIG. 1 shows an example of the functional configuration of an acoustic device and an information gathering system of the present invention. FIG. 2 shows an acoustic device of the present invention worn on the ear. FIG. 3 shows an example of the processing flow of an information gathering method of the present invention. FIG. 4 shows the results of measuring HMTFs with the inner microphone 140 without the inverting phase unit 130 in both ears of three people with small ears. FIG. 5 shows the results of measuring HMTFs with the outer microphone 150 without the inverting phase unit 130 in both ears of three people with small ears. FIG. 6 shows the results of measuring HMTFs with the inner microphone 140 with the inverting phase unit 130 in both ears of three people with small ears. FIG. 7 shows the results of measuring HMTFs with the outer microphone 150 with the inverting phase unit 130 in both ears of three people with small ears. FIG. 8 shows the results of measuring HMTFs with the inner microphone 140 without the inverting phase unit 130 in both ears of three people with small ears. 1 is a diagram showing the results of measuring the HMTFs of the outer microphone 150 without the inverting section 130 for both ears of three people with larger ears. 2 is a diagram showing the results of measuring the HMTFs of the inner microphone 140 for both ears of three people with larger ears with the inverting section 130. 3 is a diagram showing the results of measuring the HMTFs of the outer microphone 150 for both ears of three people with larger ears with the inverting section 130. 4 is a diagram plotting the coefficient of determination (square of correlation coefficient) for the power spectrum from 2 kHz to 14 kHz of the outer microphone 150 without the inverting section 130. 5 is a diagram plotting the coefficient of determination (square of correlation coefficient) for the power spectrum from 2 kHz to 14 kHz of the outer microphone 150 with the inverting section 130. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the functional configuration of a computer.

[0009] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail. Components having the same functions are given the same numbers, and duplicated explanations will be omitted.

[0010] FIG. 1 shows an example of the functional configuration of an acoustic device and an information collection system of the present invention, and FIG. 2 shows the acoustic device of the present invention worn on an ear. FIG. 3 shows an example of the processing flow of an information collection method of the present invention. The acoustic device 100 of the present invention comprises an open-ear housing 110, a speaker 120, one or more microphones 145, a measurement unit 160, an extraction unit 170, and an attachment unit 190. The speaker 120 is disposed on the cavity of the concha 910 side of the housing 110. The one or more microphones 145 are disposed in the housing 110. The acoustic device 100 is attached to the auricle 930 via the attachment unit 190. Note that while the attachment unit 190 shown in FIG. 2 is of a type that attaches the acoustic device 100 to the auricle 930, an attachment unit in the shape of glasses may also be used. The acoustic device 100 may also comprise a comparison unit 180 and a recording unit 185.

[0011] The microphone 145 may include an inner microphone 140 arranged on the cavity of the concha 910 side of the housing 110, and an outer microphone 150 arranged on the opposite side of the housing from the cavity of the concha 910. In addition, if the outer microphone 150 is included, an anti-phase unit 130 that emits sound of an opposite phase to the speaker 120 arranged on a side other than the cavity of the concha 910 side of the housing 110 may also be provided. The anti-phase unit 130 may be configured by forming a hole on the opposite side of the cavity of the concha 910 or on the side of the housing 110, and utilizing the back pressure of the speaker 120.

[0012] The measurement unit 160 uses the microphone 145 to collect sound based on a predetermined signal. The "predetermined signal" is, for example, a sweep signal. The signal may be a signal whose frequency gradually changes over a predetermined frequency range (e.g., 20 Hz to 20 kHz). The frequency characteristics of the collected sound signal are referred to as the HMTF (Headphone to Microphone Transfer Function). If an internal microphone 140 and an external microphone 150 are present, sound is collected by both. The frequency characteristics of the sound signal collected by the internal microphone 140 are also HMTF, and the frequency characteristics of the sound signal collected by the external microphone 150 are also HMTF. Note that the number of microphones may be increased. A "sound signal" is a signal obtained by converting sound into an electrical signal, and includes signals that have undergone conversion processing such as digitization.

[0013] The extraction unit 170 extracts information about a predetermined ear shape based on the sound collected by the measurement unit 160. The "predetermined information about the ear shape" may be apparent dimensions or information about acoustic characteristics such as the HpTF (Headphone Transfer Function). For example, the frequencies of peaks and notches in the HMTF in a frequency band above 4 kHz may be extracted. This is because, in binaural reproduction (HRTF: Head Related Transfer Function), it is known that pinna shape is related to peaks and notches in a frequency band above 4 kHz. Furthermore, information based on peaks in the 2-4 kHz band or the odd harmonics band in the HMTF of the inner microphone 140 or the HMTF of the outer microphone 150 may be extracted (calculated). This is because it may be possible to calculate information such as the length of the ear canal. Furthermore, relationships between ear shape and acoustic characteristics that have not yet been clearly recognized may be utilized. In this case, an information collection system, which will be described later, can be used to generate a model that outputs information about ear shape when information based on the sound signal is input, from the sound signal picked up by the microphone and information about the ear shape associated with the sound signal, and the extraction unit 170 can extract information about the ear shape using the generated model.

[0014] The acoustic device 100 may also include a comparison unit 180 and a recording unit 185. The recording unit 185 records information about the shape of the ear. When the acoustic device 100 is worn, the comparison unit 180 compares the information about the shape of the ear extracted by the extraction unit 170 with the information about the shape of the ear recorded in the recording unit 185. When the comparison unit 180 and the recording unit 185 are also included, the extraction unit 170 may simply extract the frequency characteristics of a specific frequency band of the HMTF as information about the shape of the ear. This is because the comparison by the comparison unit 180 enables authentication based on the shape of the ear. Note that because the housing 110 is an open-ear type, this authentication is based not only on the ear canal but also on the shapes of other parts of the ear.

[0015] According to the acoustic device 100, the housing 110 is an open-ear type, and sound from the speaker 120 located on the cavity of the concha side of the housing 110 is picked up by the microphone 145 located on the housing 110. Unlike canal-type earphones, it is possible to collect sound that is affected not only by the ear canal 920 but also by the shape of the pinna 930, including the cavity of the concha 910. Unlike headphones that cover the ears, it is possible to significantly reduce the influence of reverberation between the acoustic device 100 and the pinna 930. Compared to mobile phones, it is easier to place the speaker 120 and microphone 145 in the same position. Therefore, information about the shape of the ear can be extracted.

[0016] <Information Collection System> The information collection system 20 has an acoustic device 101 and an analysis device 200. The acoustic device 101 of the information collection system 20 includes an open-ear housing 110, a speaker 120, one or more microphones 145, a measurement unit 160, and an attachment unit 190. The acoustic device 101 needs to have the same configuration as the acoustic device 100 that affects acoustic characteristics, such as shape, but does not need to include the extraction unit 170, comparison unit 180, or recording unit 185. However, the acoustic device 100 may be used to actually play back acoustic signals.

[0017] The analysis device 200 includes a recording unit 290 and a model generation unit. The recording unit 290 records information based on the sound signal collected by the microphone 145 and information related to the shape of the ear to which the acoustic device 100 (101) is attached, in association with each other. The "ear shape" may refer to the shape of any part of the ear, but preferably refers to the path along which sound from the speaker 120 (reverse phase unit 130) reaches the microphone 145. When the information collection system 20 is used, information using various people's ears is recorded. The "ear shape information" may refer to apparent dimensions or may be information related to acoustic characteristics such as the HpTF (Headphone Transfer Function). The model generation unit 230 generates a model that outputs information related to the ear shape when information based on the sound signal is input, based on the sound signal collected by the microphone 145 and the information related to the ear shape associated with the sound signal, which is recorded in the recording unit 290.

[0018] 3, an information collection method using the information collection system 20 will be described. The information collection method includes an HMTF measurement step S160, a recording step S290, and a model generation step S230. In the HMTF measurement step S160, a person wears the housing 110 on their ear, and a sound based on a predetermined signal is picked up by the microphone 145. The microphone 145 may include an inner microphone 140 and an outer microphone 150.

[0019] In recording step S290, recording unit 290 of analysis device 200 records information based on sound signals collected by microphone 145 for the same ear, in association with information about the shape of the ear. By repeating steps S160 and S290, information based on sound signals collected by microphone 145 for various ears is recorded in recording unit 290 in association with information about the shape of each ear. This repeated process is performed until a sufficient amount of information has been recorded (S291).

[0020] In the model generation step S230, the model generation unit 230 generates a model that outputs information about the shape of the ear when information based on the sound signal is input, from information about the shape of the ear associated with information based on the sound signal picked up by the microphone 145 and recorded in the recording unit 290.

[0021] <Experimental Results> The following are the results of an experiment that confirmed that there is a correlation between the HMTF and the shape of the ear. The acoustic device 100 used in the experiment was equipped with an open-ear type housing 110, a speaker 120, an inner microphone 140, an outer microphone 150, a measuring unit 160, an attachment unit 190, and also equipped with an inverting unit 130.

[0022] FIG. 4A shows the results of measuring the HMTFs of three people with small ears using the inner microphone 140 without the inverting unit 130. In other words, the results are for six small ears. Hereinafter, when "both ears" is used, the left and right ears are treated as separate ears. Furthermore, the acoustic device 100 was attached to each ear, measured, and removed three times. Therefore, 18 measurement results are shown. As in the following, the 18 measurement results are shown overlappingly in FIGS. 4A to 7C. FIG. 4B shows the results of measuring the HMTFs of three people with small ears using the outer microphone 150 without the inverting unit 130. The horizontal axis represents frequency, and the vertical axis represents power spectrum.

[0023] 5A shows the results of measuring the HMTF in both ears of three people with small ears with the reverse phase unit 130 and the inner microphone 140. FIG. 5B shows the results of measuring the HMTF in both ears of three people with small ears with the reverse phase unit 130 and the outer microphone 150. The horizontal axis represents frequency, and the vertical axis represents power spectrum.

[0024] 6A shows the results of measuring the HMTFs of the ears of three people with larger ears using the inner microphone 140 without the reverse phase unit 130. FIG. 6B shows the results of measuring the HMTFs of the ears of three people with larger ears using the outer microphone 150 without the reverse phase unit 130. The horizontal axis represents frequency, and the vertical axis represents the power spectrum.

[0025] 7A shows the results of measuring the HMTFs of three people with larger ears using the inner microphone 140 with the anti-phase unit 130 and the outer microphone 150 in both ears of the three people with larger ears. The horizontal axis represents frequency, and the vertical axis represents power spectrum.

[0026] FIG. 8A plots the coefficient of determination (the square of the correlation coefficient) for the power spectrum from 2 kHz to 14 kHz of the external microphone 150 without the anti-phase unit 130. FIG. 8B plots the coefficient of determination (the square of the correlation coefficient) for the power spectrum from 2 kHz to 14 kHz of the external microphone 150 with the anti-phase unit 130. The subjects in the experiment were three people with small ears and three people with large ears, and measurements were taken of both ears of each subject. Specifically, measurements were taken three times for each ear to obtain three logarithmic power spectra. The coefficient of determination (the square of the correlation coefficient) was then calculated using the average of the three logarithmic power spectra. Therefore, the number of data points is 12 (for both ears of six subjects). As shown on the right side of FIGS. 8A and 8B, the darker the color, the stronger the correlation. The diagonal line from the upper left to the lower right represents the coefficient of determination for the same power spectrum, which is 1.0. It can be seen that the coefficient of determination is larger between the left and right ears of the same person, between people with smaller ears, and between people with larger ears.

[0027] Experiments have also confirmed that the acoustic device 100 of the present invention can extract information about the shape of the ear. Since information about the shape of the ear canal and pinna can be obtained, this information can be used to adjust the sound quality of the sound reproduced by the acoustic device and to adjust HRTF reproduction in binaural reproduction. It can also be used for personal authentication.

[0028] [Processor, Program, Recording Medium] The functions performed by the components described herein may be implemented in circuitry or processing circuitry, including general-purpose processors, application-specific processors, integrated circuits, ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits), a CPU (a Central Processing Unit), conventional circuits, and / or combinations thereof, programmed to perform the described functions. A processor includes transistors and other circuits and is considered to be circuitry or processing circuitry. A processor may also be a programmed processor that executes a program stored in a memory.

[0029] In this specification, a circuitry, unit, or means is hardware that is programmed to realize or performs the described functions, which may be any hardware disclosed herein or any hardware known to be programmed to realize or perform the described functions.

[0030] If the hardware is a processor considered to be a type of circuitry, the circuitry, means, or unit is a combination of the hardware and software used to configure the hardware and / or processor.

[0031] The various processes described above can be implemented by loading a program that executes each step of the above method into the recording unit 2020 of the computer 2000 shown in Figure 9, and operating the control unit 2010, input unit 2030, output unit 2040, display unit 2050, etc.

[0032] The program describing the processing contents can be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium, which may be, for example, a magnetic recording device, an optical disk, a magneto-optical recording medium, a semiconductor memory, or any other suitable recording medium.

[0033] The program may be distributed by, for example, selling, transferring, lending, etc. portable recording media such as DVDs and CD-ROMs on which the program is recorded. Furthermore, the program may be stored in a storage device of a server computer, and then transferred from the server computer to other computers via a network, thereby distributing the program.

[0034] A computer that executes such a program may first temporarily store the program recorded on a portable recording medium or transferred from a server computer in its own storage device. Then, when executing a process, the computer reads the program stored on its own recording medium and executes the process in accordance with the read program. Alternatively, the computer may read the program directly from a portable recording medium and execute the process in accordance with the program. Furthermore, the computer may execute the process in accordance with the program each time a program is transferred from a server computer to the computer. Alternatively, the server computer may not transfer the program to the computer, but may instead execute the process through a so-called ASP (Application Service Provider) service, which realizes the processing function by issuing an execution instruction and obtaining the results. Furthermore, the server computer may execute the process at the terminal using a so-called SaaS (Software as a Service) service, which allows users to use part of a server computer along with the program. In this embodiment, the program includes information used for processing by an electronic computer that is equivalent to a program (such as data that is not a direct instruction to a computer but has properties that dictate computer processing).

[0035] Furthermore, in this embodiment, the device is configured by executing a predetermined program on a computer, but at least a part of the processing contents may be realized by hardware.

[0036] 20 Information collection system 100, 101 Acoustic device 110 Housing 120 Speaker 130 Reverse phase unit 140 Inner microphone 145 Microphone 150 Outer microphone 160 Measurement unit 170 Extraction unit 180 Comparison unit 185 Recording unit 190 Mounting unit 200 Analysis device 230 Model generation unit 290 Recording unit 910 Cavity of concha 920 External auditory canal 930 Pinna

Claims

1. An acoustic device comprising: an open-ear housing; a speaker located on the cavity of the concha side of the housing; one or more microphones located on the housing; a measurement unit that picks up sound based on a predetermined signal with the microphone; and an extraction unit that extracts information about the shape of the ear based on the sound picked up by the measurement unit.

2. An acoustic device according to claim 1, comprising: a recording unit that records information relating to the shape of the ear; and a comparison unit that, when the acoustic device is worn, compares the information relating to the shape of the ear extracted by the extraction unit with the information relating to the shape of the ear recorded in the recording unit.

3. An information gathering system having an acoustic device and an analysis device, wherein the acoustic device comprises: an open-ear housing; a speaker arranged on the cavity of the concha side of the housing; one or more microphones arranged on the housing; and a measurement unit that picks up sound based on a predetermined signal with the microphone; and the analysis device comprises: a recording unit that records information based on the sound signal picked up by the microphone in association with information related to the shape of the ear to which the acoustic device is attached; and a model generation unit that generates a model that outputs information related to the shape of the ear when information based on the sound signal is input, based on the sound signal picked up by the microphone that is recorded in the recording unit and the information related to the shape of the ear associated with the sound signal.

4. An acoustic device according to claim 1, wherein the extraction unit uses a model generated by the information collection system according to claim 3.

5. The acoustic device of claim 1 or the information gathering system of claim 3, wherein the microphones include an inner microphone arranged on the concha side of the housing and an outer microphone arranged on the opposite side of the concha side of the housing, and the acoustic device also includes an anti-phase unit that emits sound that is anti-phase to the speaker arranged on a side other than the concha side of the housing.

6. An information gathering method using the information gathering system of claim 3, comprising: an HMTF measurement step of picking up sound based on a predetermined signal with the microphone while the housing is attached to the ear; and a model generation step of generating a model that outputs information about the shape of the ear when information based on the sound signal is input, based on the sound signal picked up by the microphone and recorded in the recording unit, and information about the shape of the ear associated with the sound signal.

7. A program for causing a computer to function as the extraction unit of the acoustic device of claim 1 or the analysis device of the information collection system of claim 3.

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