An innovative hearing system utilizing the human body as a transmission medium

An innovative hearing system utilizing the human body as a sound transmission medium is suggested. By using the human body as a sound transmission medium, sound transmitter and transmission line can be replaced with the human body. Instead of a sound transmitter, the proposed system generates sound in the body. The theory for generating audible sound is based on self-demodulation. When two ultrasonic waves with different frequencies are transmitted through a nonlinear medium, the self-demodulation effect produces an audio signal at the difference frequency of two waves. The self-demodulation effect allows the user to hear the audible sound without a sound transmitter and without making any other noise outside. Moreover, ultrasound can avoid the interference from the noise in the body, reducing the distortions in the propagation process. By substituting a transmission line with the human body, wireless sound transmission is possible. In this paper, a modulation method for the proposed system is suggested and a model of the human body as a transmission medium is analyzed. To estimate the probability of sound generation in the human body, ultrasonic characteristics of a phantom material that approximates the human body is measured. And the novelty of this innovative hearing system utilizing the human body as an intuitive service is discussed.