FAILURE DETECTION SYSTEM AND FAILURE DETECTION METHOD

• Main Authors: TOKUDA TADAMICHI, MATSUMOTO HIROYUKI, WATANABE SHUICHI, TSUJI TOSHITSUGU, IZUMI AKITOSHI, YOSHIKUNI SHINTARO
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: 07.03.2016
• Subjects: DEAF-AID SETS; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKEACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide failure detection system and method that monitor the characteristic of each microphone element contained in a microphone array device even in actual use, and can specify an abnormality-occurring microphone element even when abnormality occurs in any microphone element, thereby suppressing deterioration of directivity formation precision of voices in a predetermined direction.SOLUTION: A failure detection system 10 has an omnidirectional microphone array device 2 containing plural microphone elements 22i, and a directivity control device 3 for calculating a delay time of voices propagating from a sound source to each microphone element 22i and forming directivity of the voices by using the delay time and the voices collected by the omnidirectional microphone array device 2, and detects a failure of the microphone element 22i. A smoothing unit 341 calculates average power of one microphone element 22i. An average calculator 343 calculates the total average power of plural usable microphone elements 22i contained in the omnidirectional microphone array device 2. A comparator 352 compares the average power and the total average power to determine whether the difference between the average power and the total average power exceeds the range of ±6 dB, and determines the failure of the microphone element 22i on the basis of the comparison result.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 5 【課題】実際の使用中であっても、マイクアレイ装置に含まれる各マイク素子の特性を監視し、マイク素子に異常が生じた場合でも、異常が生じたマイク素子を特定し、所定の方向への音声の指向性形成精度の劣化を抑制する。【解決手段】故障検知システム１０は、複数のマイク素子２２ｉを含む全方位マイクアレイ装置２と、音源から各々のマイク素子２２ｉに伝搬される音声の遅延時間を算出し、この遅延時間及び全方位マイクアレイ装置２により収音された音声を用いて、音声の指向性を形成する指向性制御装置３と、を備え、マイク素子２２ｉの故障を検知する。平滑部３４１は、１つのマイク素子２２ｉの平均パワーを算出する。平均算出部３４３は、全方位マイクアレイ装置２に含まれる使用可能な複数のマイク素子２２ｉの全平均パワーを算出する。比較部３５２は、平均パワーと全平均パワーの差分が?６ｄＢの範囲を超えるか否かを比較し、この比較の結果に基づき、マイク素子２２ｉが故障であると判定する。【選択図】図５