Integrated Spacesuit Audio System Enhances Speech Quality and Reduces Noise

A new approach has been proposed for increasing astronaut comfort and speech capture. Currently, the special design of a spacesuit forms an extreme acoustic environment making it difficult to capture clear speech without compromising comfort. The current system, called Communication-Cap-based Audio (CCA), relies on a single microphone placed close to the subject’s mouth. While this results in clear audio, it also has problems: wire fatigue, blind mating, interference with food/drink, need for custom communication caps, and not being able to adjust the microphone during extravehicular activities.