TERC Sensor

Reported June 2005

WORCHESTER, Mass. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- If you're a soldier in a noisy tank or chopper, clear communication can mean the difference between life and death. That's why the Defense Department asked engineers to come up with a new version of the non-acoustical sensor. This device could change communication on the battlefield and even in the workplace.

The Tuned Electromagnetic Resonance Collar -- or TERC sensor -- detects changes in the electrical field around the neck produced by moving vocal chords. This information -- in the form of an electrical signal -- is reflected from the sensor, picked up by a separate device, and reassembled into human speech.

Rick Brown, Ph.D., an electrical and computer engineer at Worchester Polytechnic Institute in Mass., is co-inventor of this unique device. "The military was looking for novel techniques to reduce the amount of background noise in high-noise environments like driving a tank or flying a helicopter," he tells Ivanhoe.

It would be difficult to hear any speech over background noise like a Black Hawk tank or Abrahams helicopter. But using the TERC sensor together with a microphone, researchers can remove background din through special processing.

The prototype has limitations: The sensor cannot pick up certain sounds, like the "K" in ink, and it takes 30 pounds of equipment to make it work.

Brown says, "There's a lot of work that needs to be done to make the sensor more user friendly, also smaller, and cheaper."

With more refinement, researchers think the sensor could have applications beyond the military, like improving communication in noisy work environments and even detecting vocal chord problems.

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