Communication Disorders From An Avionics Perspective

The field of Communication Disorders has much to offer the field of Avionics in areas dealing with cockpit design and user interface. Avionics and Electronic Engineering Technology (EET) have much to offer Communication Disorders in areas dealing with electronic communications, navigation and control. This paper describes: Areas of communication disorders from the avionics perspective of autopilots, speech recognition and synthesis, and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technologies, Areas of avionics from the communication disorders perspective of hearing and speech disorders and augmentative and alternative communication, Ideas for Avionics/EET capstone design, special topics, and lab experiments are presented. Introduction Although the fields of Communication Disorders and Avionics might seem disparate, they in fact have a common interest, viz. communication (human and electronic). Communication Disorders and Avionics view communication from common and disparate perspectives. Communication Disorders focuses on the nature of human disorders of speech and hearing and utilizes electronics for analysis, testing and prosthesis. Testing for speech and hearing impairment utilize electronic devices such as audiometers and microphones coupled with computers. As prosthesis, hearing aids and electronic communicators substitute for damaged auditory and speech organs. Avionics focuses on the use of electronics to provide human speech and data transmission and reception, while utilizing the science of speech for electronic system development. An example of the use of speech science to improve electronic communications is the Linear Predictive Coder (LPC). An LPC produces a time varying model of the vocal tract excitation and transfer function from the speech waveform. An LPC speech synthesizer uses the mathematical model of the vocal tract to provide more natural sounding speech in a limited electronic bandwidth at 1.2 to 2.4 Kilobits/second P ge 706.1 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ” 2002, American Society for Engineering Education The following sections list design problems in one area and describe potential solutions from the perspective of the other area. The first section lists a communication disorder problem and describes approaches from an avionics system perspective. The second section reverses the roles of avionics and communication disorders. Communication Disorders from an Avionics System Perspective As a student in a course on Augmentative Communication I had the opportunity to observe students with severe communications disabilities. Upon reflecting on the various ways that the students overcame blindness, and inability or difficulty in vocalizing, I saw their challenges as similar to problems encountered in voice communications and controlling an aircraft . The students were controlling an electronic device that produced vocalization of phrases they chose by means of a variety of switches. One student used a chin switch connected to a computer that scanned words/phrases vocally. The student hit a switch to select the word/phrase as it sequentially scanned the list of available words/phrases. Another student used a head mounted laser pointer to select the word/phrase to be vocalized. Avionics designers work on minimizing the pilot workload in a cockpit by designing aids such as Head Up Displays (HUD) as an example. One way to see how an Avionics or Electronic Engineering Technology (EET) perspective can apply to problems encountered in communication disorders is to examine the courses and course material in Avionics/EET. Table 1 lists Avionics/EET courses and course material and the application of the course material to Communication Disorders. COURSES COURSE MATERIAL COMMUNICATION DISORDERS APPLICATIONS Analog Electronics Audio Amplifiers OpAmps A/D Converters Design of simple transducer electronics interfaces for communication devices Digital Electronics Combinational Logic Sequential Logic Design of instrumentation for speech and hearing testing Microprocessors/ Microcontrollers Sensor Processing Control Design of augmentative communication subsystems Communications Analog AM FM Design of wireless communication links for augmentative communication devices Advanced Communications Digital Communication Vocoders Design of vocal communicators for speech impaired people Signals and Systems Spectral Analysis Design of subsystem hardware/software for instrumentation and analysis of speech and hearing Microwaves/Radar Obstacle sensing Design of subsystems for P ge 706.2 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ” 2002, American Society for Engineering Education Correlation processing locating obstacles for sight impaired clients Table 1 Avionics/EET Course Material Relevant to Communication Disorders While thinking about the communication challenge from an avionics perspective, a surprising application of GPS came to me. One of the problems which people have in using a vocalizing communication device is that there is not a good method to whisper or have private conversations with other people. Although the volume on some devices can be adjusted, it adds to the control required to operate the device. The GPS technique that might apply to providing privacy of communication is the coded spread spectrum technique in which the GPS satellites are identified by their unique Pseudo Random code Number (PRN) . The teacher can receive communication on the same frequency from each of 24 students in the same manner that a GPS receiver acquires information from each of 24 GPS satellites broadcasting on the same frequency. Both the teacher and the students can have broadcasting capability by using a channel at a different frequency. Another example of a potential avionics design problem based on a communication disorder challenge deals with instrumentation for teaching audiology. As an audiology student, I learned the rudiments of audiometry by screening fellow students using an audiometer. My avionics perspective visualizes an electronic system in which the magnitude and degree of the severity of hearing loss can be simulated to match a variety of impairments not usually available in a typical classroom population. The following is a description of a design problem for students in a course in Electronic Communications. Background: The Communication Disorders Department at Saint Louis University has an audiology laboratory to train students in the clinical aspects of screening hearing-impaired people. One of the tests consists of generating signal of different amplitudes at specific frequencies and plotting the client's amplitude –vs.frequency response for each ear. The shape of the curve and its level indicates the type of hearing impairment. There is a need to provide a set of simulated clients for student practice i.e. an electronic device that will simulate the response of a variety of hearing impaired people.