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Researchers Set to Commercialize Intelligent Hearing Aid
For someone with partial hearing loss, picking out a voice in a crowded social gathering can be hard, even with the help of a hearing aid. That's about to change in a revolutionary way.
Albert Feng, an LAS professor of molecular and integrative physiology, is the leader of a 12-person team of researchers from the departments of physiology, electrical and computer engineering, and speech and hearing science who recently signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Phonak Inc., a leading manufacturer of technologically advanced hearing aids, to commercialize an intelligent hearing-aid system. The new hearing-aid technology will spatially separate sounds and process them in a way similar to the human brain. A key feature of the new system is its ability to integrate signals from each ear so that a listener can focus on a desired voice while canceling out background noise.
"Today's state-of-the-art hearing aids can select a voice in a crowd by applying highly directive microphones," says Feng. "However, these devices cannot effectively differentiate between background noise and the desired conversation when the sources are in close proximity, causing confusion in noisy environments."
By allowing the wearer to focus on a single conversation without excessive interference, the intelligent hearing aid will represent a significant improvement over conventional systems, Feng says.
The intelligent hearing aid prototype consists of a pair of miniature microphones, a processor, an amplifier, and two earpieces. At the heart of the system is what is called a Binaurally Based Intelligent Auditory Processor, which filters sounds and transmits only the desired voice to the amplifier. The processor works by comparing signals from the microphones and detecting subtle differences in their time of arrival—much like the process that occurs in the human brain.
Summer 2001