Nearfield inductive coupling in a contact hearing system
AssigneeEarlens Corporation
InventorsStuart W. Wenzel, Lawrence W. Arne
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In one embodiment, the present invention is directed to a method of transmitting information from an ear tip to a contact hearing device, the method comprising the steps of: exciting a transmit coil, the transmit coil being positioned in the ear tip, wherein the transmit coil is wound on a core, the core including a ferromagnetic material; radiating an electromagnetic field from the first coil through the ear canal of a user; receiving the radiated electromagnetic field at a receive coil, the receive coil being positioned on a contact hearing device, the contact hearing device including a receive coil without a ferrite core; and transmitting the information from the transmit coil to the receive coil using, for example, near-field radiation.
Claims32
A method of transmitting audio information from an ear tip to a contact hearing device, the method comprising the steps of:
- exciting a transmit coil using a varying current, the transmit coil being positioned in the ear tip, wherein the transmit coil is wound on a core, the core comprising a ferromagnetic material;
- radiating an electromagnetic field from the transmit coil through an ear canal of a user, wherein the radiated electromagnetic field is amplitude modulated based on the varying current of the transmit coil to be indicative of audio information;
- receiving the radiated electromagnetic field at a receive coil positioned on a contact hearing device wherein the receive coil has a core which is not ferromagnetic;
- and
- transmitting audio information and power from the transmit coil to the receive coil using near-field radiation, wherein the near-field radiation induces an amplitude modulated signal at the receive coil indicative of the audio information and providing power to drive a microactuator that transduces the amplitude modulated signal using the audio information.
A method of transmitting audio information from an ear tip to a contact hearing device, the method comprising the steps of:
- exciting a transmit coil using a varying current, the transmit coil being positioned in an ear tip, wherein the transmit coil is wound on a ferromagnetic core;
- radiating an electromagnetic field from the transmit coil through an ear canal of a user, wherein the radiated electromagnetic field is amplitude modulated based on the varying current of the transmit coil to be indicative of audio information;
- receiving the radiated electromagnetic field at a receive coil positioned on a contact hearing device, the receive coil having a core of a non-ferromagnetic material;
- and
- transmitting audio information and power from the transmit coil to the receive coil using near-field radiation, wherein the near-field radiation induces an amplitude modulated signal at the receive coil indicative of the audio information and providing power to drive a microactuator that transduces the amplitude modulated signal using the audio information.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.