Back to results
US 10,455,312 B1Granted
Acoustic transducer as a near-field magnetic induction coil
AssigneeBose Corporation
InventorsLouis G. Chen, Kemal Kulovic
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Aspects of the present disclosure provide an electro-acoustic transducer that serves as an acoustic transducer and as an NFMI coil. The use of a single coil eliminates the need for a dedicated NFMI coil, thereby reducing design complexity and cost of production. Circuitry is provided to allow selective filtering of acoustic and NFMI signals so the acoustic and NFMI signals may coexist in a frequency-divisional multiplexing fashion on a same electro-acoustic transducer coil.
Claims19
An apparatus comprising:
- a first acoustic device comprising a first electro-acoustic transducer;
- and
- a second acoustic device comprising a second electro-acoustic transducer,
- wherein the first and second electro-acoustic transducers are each configured to acoustically output audio signals and provide near-field magnetic induction (NFMI) coupling of the first electro-acoustic transducer and the second electro-acoustic transducer,
- wherein NFMI signals and the audio signals coexist on each of a coil of the first electro-acoustic transducer and on a coil of the second electro-acoustic transducer.
2 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- a first earpiece configured to receive audio signals from an external source device;
- a near field magnetic induction (NFMI) radio at the first earpiece configured to convert the received audio signals to NFMI signals;
- and
- a first electro-acoustic transducer at the first earpiece and a second electro-acoustic transducer at a second earpiece of the apparatus,
- wherein the first electro-acoustic transducer is configured to transmit the NFMI signals to the second earpiece of the apparatus via magnetic coupling of the first electro-acoustic transducer and the second electro-acoustic transducer and wherein the first and second electro-acoustic transducers are further configured to output representations of the audio signals via mechanical vibrations,
- wherein the audio signals and the NFMI signals coexist on each of a coil of the first electro-acoustic transducer and on a coil of the second electro-acoustic transducer.
3 more elements
A method for outputting audio signals by an apparatus comprising:
- receiving audio signals from an audio source device at a first earpiece of the apparatus;
- converting the audio signals to near field magnetic induction (NFMI) signals;
- transmitting the NFMI signals, by the first earpiece to a second earpiece of the apparatus via NFMI coupling of a first electro-acoustic transducer at the first earpiece and a second electro-acoustic transducer at the second earpiece;
- and
- processing the audio signals at the first earpiece and the NFMI signals at the second earpiece to produce representations of the audio signals for output at each of the first and second earpieces,
- wherein the processing at the first earpiece comprises:
- converting the received audio signals to analog audio signals for output by the first electro-acoustic transducer;
- and
- selectively filtering the analog audio signals and the NFMI signals so the analog audio signals and the NFMI signals coexist on a coil of the first electro-acoustic transducer.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.