Echo cancellation for bone conduction transducers

Bone conducting transducers are attractive technologies for voice communication systems. Bone vibrators (BVs), typically located on the condyle bone, allow users to listen while leaving their outer ears open, enhancing situational awareness. Meanwhile, bone conduction microphones (BCMs), often located on the temple, increase the transmitted signal to noise ratio because they are relatively insensitive to ambient airborn environmental noise. A communication headset consisting of a BV and a BCM is a natural combination of these promising technologies. The prospect of acoustic coupling between the BVs and BCMs results in acoustic echo if full-duplex communication is used. To our knowledge, such a bone conducting echo path has yet to be characterized. Here, the echo path´s linearity, stationarity, and time span are investigated and an echo canceller using bon conducting transducers is presented.