Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Nippon Telegraph

Satoshi Iwaki

Yukihiro Nakamura

Akira Nakayama

Ikuo Kitagishi

Tamotsu Machino

An information communication apparatus includes a transmission apparatus transmitting audible sound signals and information signals, and a receiving apparatus. The transmission apparatus has multiple channels through which the audible sound signals are transmitted, one or more signal synthesizing units which electrically synthesize audible sound signals corresponding to each of the channels and machine operation control signals for controlling a machine and which generate synthesized electric signals with regard to each of the channels, and a transmission unit that transmits the synthesized electric signals through a transmission path for each of the channels. The receiving apparatus has one or more receiving units receiving synthesized electric signals through the transmission path for each channel, an extraction apparatus extracting machine operation control signals from the synthesized electric signals for each channel, and a majority logic section making a majority decision based on the extracted machine operation control signals for operation of the machine.

Information communication using majority logic for machine control signals extracted from audible sound signals

The acoustic signal transmission method is based on generating a synthesized sound electrical signal by electrically synthesizing an audible sound signal and another signal different than the audible sound signal at the sending side, and transmitting the synthesized sound electrical signal, and extracting the another signal different than the audible sound signal from the synthesized sound electrical signal at the receiving side. Here, generation of the synthesized sound electrical signal is made by using a data hiding technique, for example. Accordingly, the acoustic signal represented by the synthesized sound electrical signal can be heard by human ears in the same way as the audible sound signal, and the synthesized another signal cannot be detected by human ears. Here, the synthesized sound electrical signal can be transmitted as a sound wave in air space, as electrical signal through a transmission line or as radio signals such as infrared and electromagnetic waves.

Information communication apparatus, transmission apparatus and receiving apparatus

Acoustic signal transmission method and apparatus with insertion signal

The acoustic signal transmission includes electrically synthesizing an audible sound signal and an insertion signal to generate a synthesized sound electrical signal at the sending side, transmitting the synthesized sound electrical signal, and extracting the insertion signal form the synthesized sound electrical signal at the receiving side. The extracted signal may be used for controlling machines or for transmitting information. The acoustic signal represented by the synthesized sound electrical signal can be heard by human ears in the same way as the audible sound signal, while the synthesized insertion signal cannot be detected by human ears. The synthesized sound electrical signal can be transmitted as a sound wave in air space, as electrical signals through a transmission line or as radio signals such as infrared and electromagnetic waves. The synthesized sounds may also be transported or distributed by recording on recording media such as compact disc and DVD.

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Iruma, Japan

Satoshi Iwaki