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Miniature Directional Microphone for Handheld Automatic Speech Recognition in Military Environments

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Contract: DAAH0103CR208
Agency Tracking Number: 03SB1-0045
Amount: $99,000.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: N/A
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: N/A
Award Year: 2003
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): N/A
Award End Date (Contract End Date): N/A
Small Business Information
9621 Camino del Sol NE
Albuquerque, NM 87111
United States
DUNS: 859106296
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Garth Gobeli
 Senior Scientist
 (505) 346-1685
 ggobeli@adherent-tech.com
Business Contact
 Ronald Allred
Title: President
Phone: (505) 346-1685
Email: adherenttech@comcast.net
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

The Phraselator, a handheld automatic translation device, currently uses a cardioic microphone as an input for automatic speech recognition (ASR). This microphone is highly vulnerable to performance degradation in typical noisy military environments and,thus, there is a need for an improved transducer for this application. We propose to develop a new directional microphone that is immune to extraneous sound inputs that are outside the microphone's forward detection lobe, i.e., there is a zero backsideresponse. The microphone is comprised of a small parabolic reflector (20-40 mm diameter) that focuses the incoming sound onto a small (1-3 mm diameter) spherical receiver. Preliminary calculations indicate that such a parabolic reflector-baseddirectional microphone will have an excellent directional response characteristic (forward detection response of 21 degrees FWHM) and will have an estimated sensitivity of about 2 x 10-3 Pa (20 db on the acoustic scale). Experimental measurements will bemade to verify these calculations and various designs will be evaluated in order to realize optimum performance of the new miniaturized directional microphone. Various methods of encapsulation for ruggedizing the device for military applications will bestudied. The miniature directional acoustic sensor has numerous military and industrial applications. Military uses include surveillance, location of vehicles, water craft, or sniper fire, command and control, and nondestructive evaluation. Commercialapplications include sensitive hearing aids and inspection of processing equipment and machinery. The extreme sensitivity and directionality of the new microphone brings great benefits to each of these applications.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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