Vehicle Audio Override for In-Ear Safety Message Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
In vehicles, passengers using personal listening devices often have difficulty hearing safety-related oral messages from drivers due to high audio signal volumes, leading to potential safety issues, as existing solutions like raising voice or stopping audio broadcasts are inadequate and distracting.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that detect and record oral messages, encode them as voice signals, and adjust the payload-to-noise ratio in personal listening devices to prioritize the message over existing audio signals, allowing automatic transmission via wireless networks to ensure passengers hear important announcements without interrupting their chosen audio.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If passengers use personal listening means with high audio signal volume, then they can enjoy their chosen audio content, but they cannot hear safety-related oral messages from the driver
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses the personal listening device itself as an intermediary to deliver the oral message. Instead of trying to compete with the audio signal through the vehicle's public address system, the driver's message is routed through the passenger's existing personal listening device, which the passenger is already wearing and using. This mediator approach allows the message to be delivered directly to the passenger's ear through the device they are already using.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes the audio parameters of the personal listening device. When an oral message is detected, the system modifies the volume level, pauses or mutes the ongoing audio signal, and adjusts the playback characteristics to prioritize the driver's message. These parameter changes ensure the message is audible while minimizing disruption to the passenger's audio experience.
2Reliability
If the driver raises their voice to be heard over audio signals, then the message can be heard by passengers, but the driver becomes distracted and response time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables the driver to communicate messages without manual intervention or physical adjustment. The driver simply speaks into the existing microphone system, and the automated system handles detection, routing, parameter adjustment, and delivery through the personal listening device. This self-service capability eliminates the need for the driver to raise their voice, adjust controls, or otherwise divert attention from driving.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces the mechanical/physical approach of raising one's voice with an automated electronic system. Instead of increasing acoustic volume through physical effort, the system uses automated detection, signal processing, and electronic routing to deliver the message through the personal listening device, substituting mechanical action with automated electronic control.
3Reliability
If the vehicle's multimedia system stops broadcasting audio signals to transmit oral messages, then messages can be heard clearly, but passengers' chosen audio content is interrupted
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the audio delivery channels by routing the driver's oral message through the personal listening device while maintaining the multimedia system's audio signal separate and uninterrupted. This segmentation allows both the message and the chosen audio content to coexist in different delivery paths, with the message temporarily taking precedence in the personal listening device without affecting the overall audio broadcast.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies partial action by only interrupting or adjusting the audio signal in the personal listening device during the brief duration of the oral message, rather than stopping the entire multimedia system broadcast. The audio signal is paused or volume-adjusted only for the duration needed to deliver the safety message, then resumes automatically, providing excessive but temporary adjustment to ensure message clarity.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for allowing at least one passenger, wearing a personal listening device broadcasting an audio signal, to hear an oral message uttered by an authorized person in a transport vehicle, the method including detecting, recording and encoding said oral message as a voice signal, configuring a “payload signal to noise” ratio in the perceived audio signal, in which the payload signal consists of the oral message and in which the noise consists of the audio signal and stray noise, at a value greater than a predetermined threshold, and broadcasting the voice signal on a wireless communication network, to a mobile terminal connected to the personal listening device or directly to the personal listening device in order to broadcast it to the at least one passenger.