Digital Radio Hearing Aid

A novel hearing aid system based on advanced digital signal processing and radio transceivertechnology will be developed. Three parallel developments prove feasibility; 1) an ear module whichperforms implication and digitization of the acoustic environment; 2) a bi-directional digital radio linkbetween the ear module and a remote digital signal processing module; and 3) a remote module foradvanced digital signal processing of the acoustic signal for high fidelity sound generation andcustomization to user hearing loss characteristics and surrounding acoustic environment. Thebreadboard electronics of the three main system functions will be integratable into a low-cost miniatureproduction version in phase 2. The ear module includes a custom integrated circuit to demonstrate theintegrity of the digitized acoustic signal and will utilize a unique delta-sigma circuit for high resolutionanalog-to-digital conversion and digital-to-analog conversion. The radio link will demonstrate the fullfunctionality required in the ear module and remote module and will be characterized according to range,bit error rate, power consumption, producibility, and cost. The remote module will perform multiplesimultaneous digital processing algorithms for enhancing the sound quality of the hearing aid systemoutput, customizing the characteristics of the algorithm to the user's specific needs.