Head orientation sensing system

Hearing protection has advanced to the point where headphones can reliably filter out more than 130 dB of background noise. Coupled with miniature speakers, flight deck personnel can be fed radio transmissions and safe levels of background sound, which allows them to still “hear” dangers such as nearby aircraft. However without knowing the orientation of the personnel’s head, directionality is lost, reducing the effectiveness of this feedback in keeping our personnel safe. Our unique biomimetic sensor provides a lightweight, low-power system for accurately tracking head orientation. The immediate application will be to flight deck personnel and other military personnel in a dynamic high-noise environment so that incoming auditory cues can be restored, enhancing personnel safety. Our system is low power and light weight, allowing for easy integration with head mounted hardware. The system provides information in multiple degrees of freedom and is capable of operating in a strong electromagnetic environment. Our team of biomedical and electronic engineers will partner with our academic partner Dr. Jennie Gallimore to prove the feasibility of our approach in a Phase I prototype. Our team is committed to creating a pre-production version of our product ready for immediate deployment in selected applications in Phase II.