Compact super directional microphone array to improve hearing in background noise

Project Summary Abstract Hearing in noise is one of the major problems reported by hearing impaired individuals wearing hearing aids when trying to participate in conversations with background noise In a typical restaurant or similar noisy situation background noise significantly reduces the intelligibility of speech for hearing impaired listeners The objective of this project is to build a compact battery powered wireless device to demonstrate mh acousticsandapos higher order superdirectional steerable circular microphone array beamforming technology for hearing impaired listeners mh acousticsandapos patented beamforming technology is unique in that it provides much higher directional gain than that provided by currently available devices an advantage that can greatly improve a hearing impaired listenerandapos s ability to hear and communicate in high background noise conditions The overall size of the array and associated processing hardware can be made small enough to result in a complete battery powered wireless device that fits in a shirt pocket By utilizing a wireless audio streaming connection to existing hearing aids the device allows a hearing impaired person to place the microphone closer to a desired source or sources The combination of better placement of the external microphone device along with the significantly higher amount of linear signal to noise improvement provided by the beamformer will significantly increase the intelligibility for listeners in high background noise environments Our device has the ability to manually or automatically steer the highly directional beam or beams to a desired speech source or sources something that is not currently available in commercial technologies Furthermore currently available technologies do not provide nearly as much directional gain Using mh acousticsandapos novel array hardware and beamformer design methodology our device can better handle issues experienced with traditional directional hearing devices such as loss of output level increased internal noise wind noise sensitivity and the absence of synchronous binaural processing mh acoustics founded in by researchers from Bell Laboratories is currently successfully commercializing beamforming technologies for public safety radio products as well as products in the mobile headset and handset markets mh acousticsandapos higher order superdirectional beamforming technologies achieve linear distortionless acoustic background noise reduction capability that is unequaled in the industry and that can significantly improve the ability of hearing impaired listeners to communicate in high background noise conditions In this project we will work closely with Professor Ruth Bentler Chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders University of Iowa to address audiological issues related to utilizing our superdirectional circular microphone array technology in conjunction with hearing aids in both clinical and normal field use conditions Narrative Hearing in noise is consistently one of the major problems reported by hearing impaired individuals wearing hearing aids when trying to participate in conversations in acoustic environments with background noise In a typical restaurant or similar noisy situation background noise can severely reduce the intelligibility of speech for hearing impaired listeners The objective of this project is to build a compact battery powered highly directional low power wireless microphone device that can stream high quality binaural audio to hearing aids to demonstrate the ability of mh acousticsandapos super directional microphone array beamforming technology to improve speech intelligibility in noise for hearing impaired listeners