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Speech Intelligibility with a Bone Vibrator
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In: DTIC (2005)
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Abstract:
The FELIN project (Foot soldier with Integrated Equipment and Connectivity) of the French Military Procurement Agency aims at gearing tomorrow's foot soldier with "flexible and maneuvering" equipment. Among its requirements is that foot soldiers are fitted with a communications headband operating through bone conduction. The main advantage of listening through bone conduction is that it allows for the transmission of information to the soldier, while leaving the soldier's ears free to perceive the surrounding environment. This device is light, not bulky, and is quite comfortable. This laboratory assessment compared the voice intelligibility scores of a prototype bone conduction device with those obtained by Peltor's (trademark) militarized COMTAC-type headset. The COMTAC headset is a hearing device (i.e., fitted with two microphones, left and right, to reproduce a spatial hearing capability). Both technologies allow for orientation in space using acoustic cues. Tests were performed in silence and in operationally realistic noise conditions (reproducing the noisy environment inside an armored vehicle). Voice material consisted of nonsense CVC words (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) spoken by two speakers of different genders. In silence, the prototype bone vibrator headband and the COMTAC headset obtained the same intelligibility score. In noise, the performance of the prototype headband was slightly lower than that of the COMTAC headset. One of the reasons for this is that in a noisy environment, finding the right position for the vibrator to obtain optimal hearing is difficult, and the voice transmission level is too low. In brief, bone conduction technology (reduced here to the mere listening function) has an appreciable initial potential, based on the performance obtained in silence. However, design improvements will be needed to reach the voice levels required for intelligibility in loud environments (notably for use in armored vehicles). ; See also ADM001856. Presented at the RTO Human Factors and Medicine (HFM) Symposium, New Directions for Improving Audio Effectiveness (Nouvelles orientations pour l'amelioration des techniques audio) held in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, on 11-13 Apr 2005. Pub. in the Proceedings of New Directions for Improving Audio Effectiveness (Nouvelles orientations pour l'amelioration des techniques audio, RTO-MP-HFM-123), p8-1 to 8-20, Paper 8, Apr 2005. The original document contains color images.
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Keyword:
*ARMORED VEHICLES; *BONE CONDUCTION HEADBAND; *BONES; *INTELLIGIBILITY; *SKULL; *SOUND TRANSMISSION; *VIBRATION; *VOICE COMMUNICATIONS; Acoustics; COCHLEA; COMPONENT REPORTS; COMTAC HEADSET; CONDUCTIVITY; CVC(CONSONANT VOWEL CONSONANT); FOREIGN REPORTS; FRANCE; HEADGEAR; INFANTRY PERSONNEL; INTELLIGIBILITY MEASUREMENT; LABORATORY TESTS; LISTENING TESTS; LOW INTENSITY; LOW INTENSITY SOUND; MICROPHONES; Military Forces and Organizations; NATO FURNISHED; NOISE(SOUND); REVERBERATION CHAMBERS; SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO; SILENCE; SPEECH TRANSMISSION; SYMPOSIA; Voice Communications
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URL: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA455883
http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA455883
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Speech Intelligibility with a Bone Vibrator
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In: http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public//PubFullText/RTO/MP/RTO-MP-HFM-123///MP-HFM-123-08.pdf
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