Fill out this form to register your intent to complete this project.
Fill out this form to submit your solution to this project and qualify for the rewards.
 | Develop a hearing aid simulation in Simulink. |
Over 1.8 billion people worldwide suffer from some level of hearing loss, however, only around 1 in 5 of those people use a hearing aid. Many medical device companies are working towards creating hearing aids that are cheaper, last longer, and work better, to improve their adoption amongst those who need them. The development of open-source hearing aid models could provide a platform to help improve both the efficacy, and accessibility, of hearing aids.
Use the Audio Toolbox™ and/or Simulink™ to implement a block-based hearing aid simulation. Test in real time using a headset with microphone as the input, or with pre-recorded audio.
Suggested steps:
Perform a literature review to discover the signal processing blocks commonly included in hearing aids and understand their purpose.
Create a simple input->output model that performs no signal processing but includes a filtered and delayed feedback loop from output->input to simulate crosstalk between microphone and speakers.
Develop signal processing blocks and link them together to create a full hearing aid model.
Suggested signal processing blocks:
Single or multi-band dynamic range compression (‘DRC’) (and/or automatic gain control (‘AGC’)).
Noise suppression / reduction (‘NR’).
Filtering / equalization.
Feedback suppression / cancellation (‘DFS’/’DFC’) or adaptive feedback cancellation (‘AFC’).
Advanced project extension(s):
Deploy the completed model to a cell phone, Raspberry Pi™ or other similar device, with an attached headset/microphone.
Adaption: Automatically adapt algorithm parameters to better suit the current listening conditions. Can include classification of the current environment, e.g., ‘music’, ‘speech’, ‘noise’.
MATLAB and Simulink for Hearing Aids
Real-Time Audio in MATLAB:
Audio signal processing examples:
Reading materials:
[1] Launer, S., Zakis, J.A., Moore, B.C.J. (2016). Hearing Aid Signal Processing.
[3] Kates JM, Principles of Digital Dynamic-Range Compression, Trends in Amplification.
Improve hearing aid simulation and create a testbed for new audio processing algorithm prototyping.
Signal Processing, Audio, Modeling and Simulation
Bachelor, Master's, Doctoral
Dedicated discussion forum to ask/answer questions, comment, or share your ideas for solutions for this project.
241
