KR101459010B1 - Apparatus and method for hearing ability protection in portable communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for reducing the problem of hearing loss by adjusting the sound volume being output from a portable terminal. When determining that the maximum sound pressure in accordance with the volume setting is confirmed to cause hearing loss, And a sound pressure management unit for comparing the detected sound pressure with the safe sound pressure so as to limit the perceived sound pressure over the safe sound pressure, so that the sound pressure can be adjusted to a sound range that does not cause an abnormality in hearing without inconvenience due to sound size reduction.

Sound, hearing, hearing loss, sound control, hearing protection, cognitive sound pressure

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for preventing hearing loss in a portable terminal,

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for sound control of a portable terminal, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for reducing a problem of auditory perception by adjusting a sound size being outputted from a portable terminal.

In recent years, portable terminals have been used as a necessity indispensable to modern people regardless of whether they are male or female, and service providers and terminal manufacturers are developing products (or services) competitively in order to differentiate them from other companies.

For example, the portable terminal may be a multimedia device capable of providing a phone book, a game, a short message, an e-mail, a morning call, a digital camera, To provide various additional functions.

In accordance with the multimedia trend of the portable terminal, a portable terminal capable of reproducing a music file has recently been developed and released. That is, the portable terminal capable of playing the above-mentioned music file is capable of listening to music using only the portable terminal without using the conventional MP3 player or the portable cassette.

However, the above-described functions may provide a lot of convenience to the user and may have adverse effects. For example, when the music listening function is used for a long time by using an earphone, there is a problem that hearing loss may be caused.

In order to prevent the problem of hearing loss as described above, there is a service provider (for example, 'SONY' ALVS function) that provides a hearing protection function. The above-mentioned function is to prevent the output of high tone that may cause the hearing loss, thereby preventing the hearing loss by restricting the sound output above the threshold value.

However, the above-described function is inconvenient to disable the function and listen to the high-pitched sound every time it is desired to listen to a high-pitched sound because it is impossible to output sound above the threshold value.

The above problem is solved by a method of decreasing the volume by a threshold value according to time so that the volume is finally reduced to a volume that does not inflict strain on the user's ear (Samsung Electronics Application No. P2006-0069983) It takes a long time to reduce the volume to the target volume by a method of reducing the volume of the range that can not be felt, and the decrease of the volume is recognized when the time is shortened.

Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus and a method for solving the problem of hearing loss caused by listening to an output sound without limiting the sound output of a predetermined size in the portable terminal.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for preventing hearing loss by adjusting output sound of a portable terminal.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method for preventing a decrease in hearing ability by limiting the sound pressure level of the portable terminal to more than a safe sound pressure.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for preventing hearing loss in a portable terminal, the apparatus comprising: And a sound pressure management unit for comparing the detected sound pressure with the safe sound pressure to limit the perceived sound pressure above the safe sound pressure.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for preventing hearing loss in a portable terminal, the method comprising: checking a maximum sound pressure according to a volume setting; And extracting a perceived sound pressure of the input signal and comparing the detected perceived sound pressure with a safe sound pressure; and limiting the perceived sound pressure level above the safe sound pressure level .

As described above, according to the present invention, by restricting the sound over the safe sound pressure based on the perceived sound pressure perceived by the user of the portable terminal, the sound size can be adjusted to a range that does not cause an abnormality in hearing without inconvenience due to a decrease in sound size.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. In the following description, a detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the present invention rather unclear.

The present invention provides an apparatus and method for limiting a sound over a safe sound pressure based on a sound pressure perceived by a user of the portable terminal in order to prevent a problem of hearing loss that may be caused by listening to a sound being output from the portable terminal for a long time .

Here, the safe sound pressure refers to a sound range in which the user of the portable terminal does not affect the hearing loss even if he / she is listening for a long time.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a portable terminal for proposing sound over a safe sound pressure according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG.

In the following description, the portable terminal includes a cellular phone, a Personal Communication System (PCS), a Personal Data Assistant (PDA), an International Mobile Telecommunication-2000 (IMT-2000) A broadband system terminal and the like, and the following description will be made with reference to the general configuration of the above examples.

1, the portable terminal includes a control unit 100, a sound pressure management unit 102, a memory unit 106, an input unit 108, a display unit 110, and a communication unit 112, The sound pressure management unit 102 may include a sound pressure database 104.

The microprocessor unit (MPU) 100 controls the overall operation of the portable terminal. For example, it performs processing and control for voice communication and data communication, and instructs the sound pressure management unit 102 to check the maximum sound pressure for a preset volume in addition to the normal functions according to the present invention .

The control unit 100 then instructs the sound pressure management unit 102 to measure the perceived sound pressure of the input signal when it confirms that the maximum sound pressure of the sound pressure exceeds the safe sound pressure from the sound pressure management unit 102. Here, the safe sound pressure refers to a sound range in which the user of the portable terminal does not affect the hearing loss even if he / she is listening for a long time.

Thereafter, the control unit 100 causes the sound pressure management unit 102 to limit the signal exceeding the safe sound pressure.

The sound pressure management unit 102 receives a command from the control unit 100 to check the maximum sound pressure for each volume and compares the detected maximum sound pressure with the safe sound pressure.

Here, the sound pressure management unit 102 may check the maximum sound pressure by searching the sound pressure database 10 storing the maximum sound pressure information according to the volume.

Then, the sound pressure management unit 102 receives the instruction of the control unit 100 and restricts the sound pressure signal that is greater than or equal to the safe sound pressure.

The sound pressure database 104 includes safe sound pressure information, which is the magnitude of a sound that does not affect the hearing loss even when the output sound is listened to for a long time, and a magnitude value of the maximum sound pressure per volume.

The memory unit 106 includes a ROM (Read Only Memory), a RAM (Random Access Memory), and a flash ROM. The ROM stores the microcode of the program for processing and controlling the control unit 100 and the sound pressure management unit 102, and various reference data.

The RAM is a working memory of the controller 100, and stores temporary data generated during execution of various programs. In addition, the flash ROM stores various updatable storage data such as a phone book, an origination message, and a received message.

The input unit 108 includes numeric key buttons 0 to 9 and a menu key, a cancel button, an OK button, a talk button, an end button, an Internet access button, a navigation key And a character input key), and provides the controller 100 with key input data (e.g., volume control request, etc.) corresponding to a key pressed by the user.

The display unit 110 displays status information, a limited number of characters, a large amount of moving images, still images, and the like that occur during the operation of the portable terminal. The display unit 110 may use a color liquid crystal display (LCD).

The communication unit 112 performs a function of transmitting / receiving a radio signal of data input / output through an antenna (not shown). For example, in the case of transmission, channel coding and spreading are performed on data to be transmitted, RF processing is performed for transmission, and in case of a receiver, the received RF signal is converted into a baseband signal And performs a function of de-spreading and channel decoding the baseband signal to recover data.

The sound pressure management unit 102 may be operated by the control unit 102. However, the functions of the sound pressure management unit 102 are separately described in the present invention. Therefore, when the product is actually implemented, the control unit 100 may be configured to process all of them.

The above description has been made on an apparatus for limiting the sound above the safe sound pressure based on the sound pressure recognized by the user of the portable terminal in order to prevent a problem that may cause hearing loss by listening to the sound being outputted from the portable terminal for a long time, In the description, a method for limiting the sound above the safe sound pressure based on the sound pressure perceived by the user using the apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described.

2 is a block diagram illustrating the structure of a sound pressure management unit for extracting perceived sound pressure according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. 3 is a graph showing sound pressure curves showing the operation of the sound pressure management unit.

Referring to FIG. 2, the sound pressure management unit 102 may include a recognition sound pressure correction unit 103, and the sound pressure database is unnecessary for the recognition sound pressure extraction.

The perceived sound pressure correction unit 103 processes the sound pressure of the input signal by using a sound pressure correction filter to extract a sound pressure that can be perceived by a person.

3 (b), the minimum sound pressure 301 that can be perceived by a person and the sound pressure 303 (sound pressure per frequency) 303 that can be perceived by the user are obtained by using a sound pressure correction filter having characteristics as shown in FIG. ) To be recognized by the corresponding person between the sound pressure and the sound pressure.

3C, the sound pressure management unit 102 extracts the perceived sound pressure by the above-described method so as not to output the signal exceeding the safe sound pressure even if a signal exceeding the safe sound pressure is input.

That is, the sound pressure management unit 102 processes only the sound pressure that is greater than or equal to the preset safe sound pressure.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a process of suggesting sound over safe sound pressure in a portable terminal according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 4, the controller 100 of the portable terminal first checks the current volume of the portable terminal in step 401, and then proceeds to step 403 so that the sound pressure management part 102 checks the maximum sound pressure according to the volume Indicate.

That is, the sound pressure management unit 102 receiving the instruction of the control unit 100 searches the sound pressure database 104 storing the maximum sound pressure according to each volume level to obtain the maximum sound pressure according to the volume, It is possible to judge whether or not it is possible.

Then, the controller 100 proceeds to step 405 where it determines whether the maximum volume acquired in the step is greater than the safe sound pressure.

Here, the safe sound pressure refers to a sound range in which the user of the portable terminal does not affect the hearing loss even if he / she is listening for a long time.

If it is determined that the maximum volume is smaller than the safe sound pressure, the controller 100 determines that the volume setting state is not a state in which hearing loss may occur, and performs the process of step 401 again.

On the other hand, if it is determined that the maximum volume is greater than the safe sound pressure, the controller 100 determines that the volume setting state is a state in which hearing loss may occur, and proceeds to step 407 so that the sound pressure management part 102 In step 409, the sound pressure management unit 102 processes only the signal exceeding the safe sound pressure.

Thereafter, the control unit 100 ends the algorithm.

While the invention has been shown and described with reference to certain preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited by the illustrated embodiments, but should be determined by the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereof.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a portable terminal for proposing sound above a safe sound pressure level according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a sound pressure management unit for extracting a perceived sound pressure according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a graph showing a sound pressure curve for restricting the sound above the safe sound pressure based on the perceived sound pressure according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a process of suggesting a sound over safe sound pressure in a portable terminal according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. FIG.

Claims (10)

An apparatus for preventing hearing loss in a portable terminal, A sound pressure level of the sound source is determined so that the perceived sound pressure is less than the safe sound pressure level after comparing the detected sound pressure level with the safe sound pressure level, And a sound pressure management unit for reducing the sound pressure, The sound pressure management unit determines that the hearing loss can be caused by using the difference between the sound pressure and the minimum sound pressure of the sound source according to the frequency, Wherein the minimum sound pressure is defined as a different value depending on the frequency. The method according to claim 1, The sound pressure management unit includes: Wherein the control unit compares the recognition sound pressure of the input signal with the safe sound pressure, and reduces the sound pressure of the sound source when the recognition sound pressure is equal to or higher than the safe sound pressure. The method according to claim 1, The sound pressure management unit includes: And comparing the maximum sound pressure and the safe sound pressure according to the volume setting to determine a state capable of causing the hearing loss. The method of claim 3, The sound pressure management unit includes: Wherein the controller determines that the audible sound is in a state capable of causing the hearing loss when the maximum sound pressure is greater than the safe sound pressure. 5. The method of claim 4, The safe sound pressure is, Wherein the sound pressure is in a range that does not affect hearing loss even if he / she is listening for a long time. A method for preventing hearing loss in a portable terminal, Checking the maximum sound pressure according to the volume setting, Determining whether the volume setting state is capable of causing a hearing loss using a difference between a sound pressure and a minimum sound pressure of a sound source according to a frequency; Extracting a perceived sound pressure of the input signal and comparing the detected perceived sound pressure with a safe sound pressure and decreasing the sound pressure of the sound source so that the perceived sound pressure is less than the safe sound pressure, Wherein the minimum sound pressure is defined as a different value depending on the frequency. The method according to claim 6, Wherein the step of reducing the sound pressure of the sound source such that the perceived sound pressure is equal to or less than the safe sound pressure, And comparing the sensed sound pressure of the input signal with the safe sound pressure, and reducing the sound pressure of the sound source when the sensed sound pressure is equal to or higher than the safe sound pressure. The method according to claim 6, The condition capable of causing the hearing loss may include, And comparing the maximum sound pressure and the safe sound pressure according to the volume setting. 9. The method of claim 8, The condition capable of causing the hearing loss may include, Wherein the maximum sound pressure equal to or higher than the safe sound pressure is greater than the safe sound pressure. 10. The method of claim 9, The safe sound pressure is, And sound pressure within a range that does not affect hearing loss even if he / she is listening for a long time.

Images