Networked Hearing Aids Using Wireless LAN Technologies

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel scheme of hearing aid system which will release quite a lot of old people from light hearing loss or presbycusis, with its easy handling functions and high fidelity output. Hearing aids have been much improved over the past twenty years. However, they still require the troublesome fitting process, above all to old people. Most of hearing aid users point out the noisy performance in their reaction polls. The proposed system electronically connects hearing aids using both air and bone conducted voice signals each other via wireless local access, everywhere. The electronic transfer of voice signals enables to reduce the noise more effectively than the acoustic transfer, especially in noisy environments. It leads to global connections through high speed IP networks. Additionally, the amplifier for hearing loss compensation of the system can be controlled independently at each specified audiogram test frequency and gives less distortion than conventional sub-band flat gain controlled amplifiers. It also makes the hearing quality more natural. Thus, it is expected that isolating old people with hearing loss are able to evenly participate in the future ubiquitous network society as well as general people without hearing troubles. This paper describes the configuration, principles of the proposed scheme. The subjective performance test results show the possibility of outstanding quality improvement.