• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.189-199
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• 2016

Many implantable hearing aids are being developed as alternatives to conventional hearing aids which has inconveniences for use and social stigma that make hearing-impaired people avoid to wear it. Particularly, the fully-implantable middle ear hearing devices (F-IMEHD) are being actively studied for mixed or sensorineural hearing impaired people. In development of F-IMEHD, the most difficult problem is improving the performance of implantable microphone. Recently, Cho et al. have studied the tympanic membrane installed microphone which has better sensitivity and is easier to operate on patient than the microphone implanted under the skin. But, it may cause howling problem due to the feedback signal via oval window and ossicle chain from the transducer on round window in the middle ear cavity, therefore, a feedback canceller is necessary. In this paper, we designed NLMS (normalized least mean square) adaptive feedback canceller for F-IMEHD with tympanic membrane installed microphone and a transducer implemented at round window, and computer simulation was performed to verify its operation. The designed adaptive feedback canceller has a delay filter, a 64 point FIR fixed filter and a 8-tap adaptive FIR filter. Computer simulation of the feedback path is modeled by using the data obtained through human cadaver experiment.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.326-331
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• 2014

In this study, a MEMS microphone that uses $Si_3N_4$ as the vibration membrane was produced for application as an auditory device using a sound visualization technique (sound visualization) for the hearing impaired. Two sheets of 6-inch silicon wafer were each fabricated into a vibration membrane and back plate, after which, wafer bonding was performed. A certain amount of charge was created between the bonded vibration membrane and the back plate electrodes, and a MEMS microphone that functioned through the capacitive method that uses change in such charge was fabricated. In order to evaluate the characteristics of the prepared MEMS microphone, the frequency flatness, frequency response, properties of phase between samples, and directivity according to the direction of sound source were analyzed. The MEMS microphone showed excellent flatness per frequency in the audio frequency (100 Hz-10 kHz) and a high response of at least -42 dB (sound pressure level). Further, a stable differential phase between the samples of within -3 dB was observed between 100 Hz-6 kHz. In particular, excellent omnidirectional properties were demonstrated in the frequency range of 125 Hz-4 kHz.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.25-32
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• 2010

The paper proposes a hierarchical fault detection method for the high voltage equipment using a microphone array which detects the location of fault and the thermal imaging and CCD cameras which verifies the fault and stores the image, respectively. There are partial arc discharges on the faulty insulators, which generates a specific pattern of sound. Detecting the signal using the microphone array, the location of the faulty insulator can be estimated. The 6th band-pass filter was applied to remove noise signal from wind or external influence. When the mobile robot carries the thermal and CCD cameras to the possible place of the fault insulator, the fault insulators or power transmission wires can be detected by the thermal images, which are caused by the aging or natural erosion. Finally, the CCD camera captures the image of the fault insulator for the record. The detection scheme of fault location using the microphone array and the thermal images have been proved to be effective through the real experiments. As a result of this research, it becomes possible to use a mobile robot with the integrated sensors to detect the fault insulators instead of a human being.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.12
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• pp.2300-2307
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• 2008

This study receives the noise transmitted in a constant audio frequency range through a microphone array in which the noise(like grease in a pan) occurs on the power supply line due to the troublesome partial discharge(arc). Then by going through a series of signal processing of removing noise, this study measures the distance and direction up to the noise caused by the troublesome partial discharge(arc) and monitors the result by displaying in the analog and digital method. After these, it determines the state of each size and judges the distance and direction of problematic part. When the signal sound transmitted by the signal source of bad insulator is received on each microphone, the signal comes only in the frequency range of 20 kHz by passing through the circuit of amplification and 6th low pass filter. Then, this signal is entered in a digital value of digital signal processing(TMS320F2812) through the 16-bit A/D conversion. By doing so, the sound distance, direction and coordinate of bad insulator can be detected by realizing the correlation method of detecting the arriving time difference occurring on each microphone and the algorithm of detecting maximum time difference.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.624-633
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• 2018

While the multimedia lecture system has been getting smart using immerging technology, the microphone still relies on the classical approach such as holding in hand or attaching on the body. In this paper, we propose a ceiling mounted array microphone system that allows a wide reception coverage and instructors to move freely without attaching microphone. The proposed system adopts cell and handover of mobile communication instead of a complicated beamforming method and implements a wide range microphone over several cells with low cost. Since the characteristics of unvoiced speech is similar to Pseudo Noise it is shown that soft handover are possible with 3 microphones connected to delay-sum multipath receiver. The proposed system is tested in $6.3{\times}1.5m$ area. For real-time processing the correlation range can be reduced by 82% or more, and the output latency delay can be improved by using the delay adaptive filter.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.144-150
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• 2012

A microphone for fully implantable hearing device was generally implanted under the skin of the temporal bone. So, the implanted microphone's characteristics can be affected by the accompanying noise due to masticatory movement. In this paper, the implantable microphone with 2-channels structure was designed for reduction of the generated noise signal by masticatory movement. And an experimental model for generation of the noise by masticatory movement was developed with considering the characteristics of human temporal bone and skin. Using the model, the speech signal by a speaker and the artificial noise by a vibrator were supplied simultaneously into the experimental model, the electrical signals were measured at the proposed microphone. The collected signals were processed using a general adaptive filter with least mean square(LMS) algorithm. To confirm performance of the proposed methods, the correlation coefficient and the signal to noise ratio(SNR) before and after the signal processing were calculated. Finally, the results were compared each other.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2008

Nowadays, implantable hearing aids have been developed to solve the problems of conventional hearing aids. In case of fully implantable hearing aids, an implantable microphone is necessary to receive sound signal beneath the skin. Normally, an implantable microphone has poor frequency response characteristics in high frequency bands of acoustic signal due to the high frequency attenuation effect of skin after implantation to human body. In this paper, the implantable microphone is designed to reduce the high frequency attenuation effect of a skin by putting its resonance frequency at the attenuated range through a finite element analysis (FEA) simulation. The designed implantable microphone through the simulated results has been fabricated by manufacturing process using bio-compatible materials. By the several in-vitro experiments with pig skin, it has been verified that the designed implantable microphone has a resonance frequency around the starting part of the attenuated range and reduces the attenuation effect.

• Journal of KIISE
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.13-26
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• 2016

This paper proposes a new sound localization algorithm that can improve localization performance based on a tetrahedron-shaped microphone array. Sound localization system estimates directional information of sound source based on the time delay of arrival(TDOA) information between the microphone pairs in a microphone array. In order to obtain directional information of the sound source in three dimensions, the system requires at least three microphones. If one of the microphones fails to detect proper signal level, the system cannot produce a reliable estimate. This paper proposes a tetrahedron- shaped sound localization system with a coordinate transform method by adding one microphone to the previously known triangular-shaped system providing more robust and reliable sound localization. To verify the performance of the proposed algorithm, a real time simulation was conducted, and the results were compared to the previously known triangular-shaped system. From the simulation results, the proposed tetrahedron-shaped sound localization system is superior to the triangular-shaped system by more than 46% for maximum sound source detection.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.309-314
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• 2024

Avionics Intercom performs communication between pilot, co-pilot and crews in aircraft. In the case of developing intercom in the aircraft modification development project, additional communication equipment or avionics equipment is configured to link the existing intercom with the headsets. Newly designed intercom needs a configuration that receives an aircraft headset microphone and transmits a microphone signal to the existing intercom, and these signals are required to perform signal quality above a certain level. To satisfy these requirements, microphone transmitter circuit has designed and tested, but quality factors of signal were not suitable. In order to avoid the issue, eliminate transmitter and apply signal bridge circuit considered with load effect, and it meets requirements. In this paper, the test results for the signal quality for each configuration are reviewed.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.238-247
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• 2014

In this paper, rail vibration and its sound radiation are investigated, then the rail noise measurement by using microphone array is explored theoretically. A concrete slab track for domestic high speed trains is modeled as a Timoshenko beam on elastic support, regarding the moving of the excitation force on the rail. From the radiation characteristics of rail noise generated by a line source, the effect of moving load on sound radiation is obtained. Also it is found that the beam angle of the microphone array is a prominent factor to measure the rail noise level reliably because the rail noise propagates as a plane wave. In this investigation, a proper beam angle for the rail noise measurement by microphone array is suggested.