Augmented Environmental Awareness System for Auditory Signal Processing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Users, especially those with age-related hearing loss, face challenges in comprehending multiple auditory sources simultaneously, as existing hearing assistance devices often fail to effectively highlight new sounds in noisy environments, leading to increased background noise and distractions.
Innovation Solution
An augmented environmental awareness system that detects new sounds in a user's auditory environment and adjusts their presentation to make them more noticeable, using techniques such as frequency transposition, time-delay, and amplitude adjustment, based on the type and importance of the sound, as well as user preferences, to enhance audibility and reduce background noise.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If hearing assistance devices amplify all environmental sounds to help users hear better, then audibility of sounds is improved, but background noise and distractions increase making it harder to comprehend multiple auditory sources
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically changes audio parameters (gain, frequency transposition, time-delay) based on the detected sound characteristics and user attention state. When the user is focused on a particular sound source, the system reduces gain for other sounds and applies frequency transposition to differentiate the focused sound from background noise, thereby improving audibility of important sounds while suppressing background distractions
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different audio processing qualities to different sound sources based on their importance and the user's attention. The sound source that the user is currently focused on receives enhanced processing (higher gain, frequency transposition) while other sounds receive reduced processing, creating local quality differentiation that helps the user comprehend multiple auditory sources without being overwhelmed by all sounds equally
2Reliability
If hearing assistance devices provide comprehensive environmental awareness, then user safety and situational awareness are improved, but the user's limited ability to comprehend multiple auditory sources is overwhelmed
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the complex auditory environment into distinct processed streams: a focused sound source stream with enhanced gain and frequency transposition, and a background environmental sounds stream with reduced gain. This segmentation allows the user to comprehend the focused source clearly while still maintaining awareness of the broader environment, resolving the contradiction between comprehensive awareness and manageable comprehension
Solution Approach 2:
The system acts as an intermediary between the complex auditory environment and the user's limited comprehension capacity. It selectively enhances and prioritizes certain sounds through frequency transposition and gain control, translating the overwhelming environmental soundscape into a manageable set of distinguished auditory elements that the user can comprehend while maintaining safety awareness
3Loss of information
If hearing assistance devices apply complex signal processing to highlight new sounds, then new sounds become more noticeable, but device complexity and computational requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies frequency transposition and time-delay selectively only to the focused sound source rather than processing all environmental sounds equally. This partial action approach highlights new and important sounds effectively while avoiding the computational burden of complex processing across the entire auditory spectrum, thereby reducing device complexity while maintaining detectability of important sounds
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for an augmented environmental awareness system to present new and important sounds to a user in an enhanced auditory experience. In one aspect, a method includes detecting a new sound that was not present in a current auditory environment before the detection, adjusting electrical input signals that are determined to be characteristic of the new sound to generated adjusted electrical signals, generating electrical output signals from the adjusted electrical signals and from the electrical input signals that are not determined to be characteristic of the new sounds, and providing the electrical output signals to audio output transducers.