Smart pillows and processes for providing active noise cancellation and biofeedback

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9640167-B2
Application number	US-201514830764-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 20, 2015
Priority date	Aug 20, 2014
Publication date	May 2, 2017
Grant date	May 2, 2017

Abstract

A smart pillow unit and processes for providing active noise cancellation and biofeedback.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A process for providing active noise cancellation and biofeedback in an electronic pillow comprising a pillow unit operatively coupled to a reference sensing unit and a controller unit, the process comprising:
receiving signals via a plurality of error microphones encased in the pillow unit, wherein the error microphones are spaced a first predetermined distance from one another;
receiving at least one signal from at least one reference sensing microphone in the reference sensing unit; and
processing signals received from the error microphones and reference sensing microphone in the controller unit to simultaneously reduce noise and provide biofeedback in an area between the error microphones using a plurality of speakers encased in the pillow unit, wherein each of the speakers are spaced a second predetermined distance from each of the respective error microphones, wherein noise is reduced in the controller unit utilizing a multiple-channel feed-forward active noise control, and wherein the controller unit processes signals received from the at least one of the error microphones and the controller unit simultaneously provides both acoustic echo cancellation and biofeedback, wherein the biofeedback comprises emitting a sound at frequencies of less than 2.0 Hz by using constructive and/or destructive interference patterns of higher frequency sound waves or volume modulation of source content from at least one of the plurality of speakers.

2. The process of claim 1 , wherein the controller unit comprises a digital signal processing unit operatively coupled to a phone interface, wherein the acoustic echo cancellation and the biofeedback is performed on signals received in the phone interface.

3. The process of claim 1 , further comprising:
using the at least one signal from the at least one reference sensing microphone to generate biofeedback, the biofeedback comprising an arrangement of music; and
providing the biofeedback to the user.

4. The process of claim 1 , further comprising:
using the at least one signal from the at least one reference sensing microphone to generate biofeedback, the biofeedback comprising slow waves; and
providing the biofeedback to the user.

5. The process of claim 1 , wherein the electronic pillow is portable.

6. The process of claim 1 , wherein the pillow is a headrest in a chair.

7. The process of claim 1 , wherein the biofeedback provides an audible alarm responsive to an emergency situation of a user of the electronic pillow unit, wherein an emergency situation comprises at least one of a cessation of breathing by the user, irregular breathing of the user, and choking sounds of the user.

8. The process of claim 1 , wherein the sound emitted at frequencies of less than 2.0 Hz is a beat frequency, wherein the beat frequency is monaural or binaural or isochronic.

9. The process of claim 8 , wherein the isochronic beat frequency comprises a musical tone segment alternated with a silent segment to provide a frequency presentation rate of less than 2.0 Hz.

10. The process of claim 8 , wherein emitting the monaural beat frequency comprises stacking two individual frequencies and combining the stacked frequencies into speaker channels of the plurality of speakers encased in the pillow unit to produce the beat frequency through each one of the speaker channels.

11. The process of claim 8 , wherein emitting the binaural beat frequency comprises splitting frequency pairs into separate channels of at least two of the plurality of speakers.

12. The process of claim 8 , wherein the beat frequency is embedded within other biofeedback.

13. The process of claim 12 , wherein the other biofeedback is user defined music.

14. The process of claim 12 , further comprising combining the beat frequency with key masking, wherein key masking comprises determining a musical key of the user defined music and adjusting base beat frequencies of the monoaural, binaural or isochronic beats so as to blend the monoaural, binaural or isochronic beat frequencies with the user defined music.

15. The process of claim 1 , wherein the sound emitted is a beat frequency of less than 1.0 Hz.

16. A process for providing active noise cancellation and biofeedback in an electronic pillow comprising a pillow unit operatively coupled to a reference sensing unit and a controller unit, the process comprising:
receiving signals via a plurality of error microphones encased in the pillow unit, wherein the error microphones are spaced a first predetermined distance from one another;
receiving at least one signal from at least one reference sensing microphone in the reference sensing unit; and
processing signals received from the error microphones and reference sensing microphone in the controller unit to simultaneously reduce noise and provide biofeedback in an area between the error microphones using a plurality of speakers encased in the pillow unit, where each of the speakers are spaced a second predetermined distance from each of the respective error microphones, wherein noise is reduced in the controller unit utilizing a multiple-channel feed-forward active noise control, and wherein the controller unit processes signals received from the at least one of the error microphones and the control unit simultaneously provides both acoustic echo cancellation and biofeedback, wherein the biofeedback comprises providing entrainment frequencies with user defined music, wherein providing the entrainment frequencies comprises key masking the user defined music by determining a musical key of the user defined music and adjusting base frequencies of the entrainment frequencies so as to blend the entrainment frequencies with the user defined music.

17. The process of claim 16 , wherein the entrainment frequencies are less than 2.0 Hz.

18. The process of claim 16 , wherein the entrainment frequencies are less than 1.0 Hz.

19. The process of claim 16 , wherein the entrainment frequencies are monoaural or binaural or isochronic beat frequencies.

20. The process of claim 16 , wherein determining the musical key of the user defined music comprises a fast fourier transform analysis measuring relative power of all frequencies captured within a recording of the user defined music.

21. The process of claim 20 further comprising superimposing a sine wave tone equivalent to a root note frequency of the musical key and a sine wave tone offset from the root note frequency by a specified frequency determined by a desired entrainment frequency.

Assignees

• Dreamwell Ltd

Inventors

• Defranks Michael S
• Golin Michael A

Classifications

• A61M2205/42

  Reducing noise · CPC title

• A61M2205/3375

  Acoustical, e.g. ultrasonic, measuring means · CPC title

• A61M21/02

  for inducing sleep or relaxation, e.g. by direct nerve stimulation, hypnosis, analgesia (for massage A61H; electrotherapy A61N, e.g. applying alternating or intermittent electric currents for producing anaesthesia A61N1/36021) · CPC title

• A61M2021/0027

  by the hearing sense · CPC title

• G10K2210/505

  Echo cancellation, e.g. multipath-, ghost- or reverberation-cancellation · CPC title