Antenna formed of a plurality of acoustic pick-ups

• US 6,160,757 A
• Filed: 08/20/1998
• Issued: 12/12/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hanger Solutions, LLC (IP Investments Group LLC)
• Original Assignee: France Telecom SA (Orange S.A.)
• Inventors: Tager, Wolfgang, Le Tourneur, Gregoire
• Primary Examiner(s): Lobo, Ian J.
• Application Number:
  US09/137,036
• Time in Patent Office: 845 Days
• Field of Search: 367/103, 367/129, 367/119, 367/138, 381/26, 381/92
• US Class Current: 367/119
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2201/401 2D or 3D arrays of transducers
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2201/403 Linear arrays of transducers
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2201/405 Non-uniform arrays of transducers or a plurality of uniform arrays with different transducer spacing
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/005 for combining the signals of two or more microphones specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407

Abstract

The output signals of the acoustic sensors of the antenna are subjected to a processing of the superdirective kind, with a constraint as regards the modulus and a non-linear constraint which fixes the incoherent noise reduction.

The theoretical formulation of these constraints being as follows ##EQU1## the first constraint signifying that the total transfer function is a pure delay τ, and the second constraint signifying that a limit is fixed for the incoherent noise reduction.

The antenna is provided to improve the near-field reception.

Claims

1. A method of providing an acoustic antenna formed from M discrete acoustic transducers having output signals respectively subjected to filters processing g(f)=(g₁ (f), . . . , g_M (f)) wherein the method comprises:

a step for maximizing a directivity factor which depends on (1) the modules A(f)-(α

₁^H (f)α

₁ (f) of the signals that are emitted by a near-field source and respectively received by said transducers, and (2) the modules d₂ (f) of signals that are emitted by a perturbing source and respectively received by said transducers, said directivity factor being given by;

##EQU25## where A(f) is a matrix equal to;

space="preserve" listing-type="equation">A(f)=a.sub.1.sup.H (f)a.sub.1 (f)

and, where D(f) is equal to;

##EQU26## said maximizing step comprising a linear unit gain for the signal emitted by the near field source given by the following relation;

space="preserve" listing-type="equation">g(f)a.sub.1.sup.H (f)=e.sup.-j2π

fτ

where τ

is a constant representing a pure delay.

2. The method of providing an acoustical antenna according to claim 1, wherein said maximizing step comprises a non-linear factor which fixes a value R_min for an incoherent noise reduction given by the following relation:

##EQU27##

3. The method of providing an acoustical antenna according to either claim 1 or claim 2 wherein said maximizing step comprises a linear constraint which forces attenuation and zeros in given directions of the directivity defined by the following relation:

space="preserve" listing-type="equation">C(f)g.sup.H (f)=p(f)

where C(f) is a matrix of propagation vectors for the directions of the space concerned with this constraint and p(f) represents the transfer functions for these directions.

4. Antenna according to claim 3, characterised in that there are direction of rows of sensors in first and second parts, the rows being transverse to the mean direction of the wanted acoustic waves.

5. Antenna according to claim 3, characterised in that there are rows of sensors in first and second parts, the rows being slightly oblique with respect to the mean direction of the wanted acoustic waves.

6. Antenna according to one of claims 4 and 5, characterised in that the sensors of the first part are distributed symmetrically in a logarithmic manner around the median sensor.

7. Antenna according to claim 6, characterised in that the sensors of the first part are selectively allocated to a number of sub-antennas, each sub-antenna being associated with a pre-determined frequency band and the sensors selectively allocated to this sub-antenna delivering output signals which are processed by a conventional processing, the frequency bands being contiguous and as a whole not going below 1 kHz in practice, each processing consisting of a specific filtering and the output signals of each specific filter being summed.

8. Antenna according to claim 7, characterised in that each sensor output signal is filtered by a filter which performs all of the following:

the SDMP algorithm for the low frequencies, division into frequency bands according to the logarithmic antenna method, and conventional channel formation for the frequencies not processed according to the SDMP algorithm.

9. Antenna according to any one of claims 3 to 8, characterised in that a propagation model is used.

10. Antenna according to any one of claims 3 to 8, characterised in that a measurement of the propagation vectors is used.

11. An acoustical antenna made by the method according to one of the claims 1-3.