Vehicle Seat Bone Conduction Speaker for Personalized Audio
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing sound systems in vehicles, such as those described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-95646, suffer from significant sound leakage due to air-conducted speakers, which degrades the quality of sound experienced by occupants when listening to music individually.
Innovation Solution
A sound system incorporating a bone conduction speaker integrated into a vehicle seat that faces the occupant's skull, along with a controller that selects and outputs sound based on occupant attribute information or device operations, reducing sound leakage and enhancing sound quality. This system also includes an air-conducted sound absorber and adjusts environmental conditions like air conditioning, illumination, and seat angle for optimal listening experiences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If an air-conduction speaker is positioned close to the ear, then the sound can be heard, but sound leakage occurs and sound quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the air-conduction speaker with a bone conduction speaker that transmits sound through the skull bone directly to the inner ear, substituting the mechanical air conduction path with a solid bone conduction path. This eliminates sound leakage into the ambient environment while maintaining clear sound transmission to the occupant's ear.
2Reliability
If each occupant individually selects sound, then sound quality improves, but operation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically identifies each occupant and provides individually selected sound content without requiring manual operation. The bone conduction speaker system detects the occupant's presence and automatically plays selected content, allowing the system to serve itself by eliminating the need for occupant interaction.
Solution Approach 2:
The control system integrates multiple functions including automatic occupant identification, sound selection, and playback control into a single automated system that serves all occupants simultaneously without requiring individual operations from each person.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If bone conduction speaker is used, then sound leakage is reduced, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the sound transmission function from the traditional air-conduction speaker system and implements it separately through bone conduction technology integrated into the seat, isolating the sound transmission path from the ambient environment and eliminating the need for complex sound isolation structures.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The bone conduction speaker significantly reduces sound leakage, improving the quality of sound heard by each occupant while allowing personalized sound selection without manual operation, and provides a more comfortable listening environment by adjusting ambient conditions.
Implementation Method 1
a bone conduction speaker that is built into a seat of a moving object and faces a skull of an occupant seated in the seat
Implementation Method 2
an air-conducted sound absorber provided around a portion of the seat corresponding to the bone conduction speaker
Data Source
AI summary
A bone conduction speaker is built into a seat of a vehicle and faces the skull of an occupant seated in the seat. An acoustic control ECU individually selects sound to be output from the bone conduction speaker for each of the occupants in the vehicle, according to attribute information of the occupant recorded in a portable terminal device carried by the occupant, and causes the selected sound to be individually output from the bone conduction speaker to each of the occupants.