Advanced Hearing Protection Product Transition

Through earlier SBIR programs, as well as the exercising of a number of enhancements and options, ATI has been able to leverage development funds to the point of preparing three classes of product, designed for the Navy flight deck noise environments, for transition to the fleet. The product categories ready for transition include: passive hearing protection, digital noise canceling microphones, and active noise reduction hearing protection systems. In this context, “transition” refers to: • Completing necessary non-recurring engineering activities, including drawing packages and manufacturing work instructions • Manufacturing pre-production test units for the purposes of completing validation testing, operational testing and field evaluation • Conducting formal testing including environmental, EMI, hearing protection, speech intelligibility, and other validation testing required for the target operation environment ATI has successfully begun the transition of a very simple product, the Custom Contoured Foam Insert, through similarity and hearing protector evaluation testing, during one of the Phase II programs. However, the more advanced products considered under this program include state of the art active noise reduction earplugs and a new head protection system. These products require a significantly higher level of sophisticated testing and evaluation to be considered for use in the flight deck environment.