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Hearing is considered as the most important senses of humans because it connects us to the world always. And the communication between humans are mostly by speaking and listening. So hearing loss can have a significant affect on our life, from our work to our connections and enthusiastic prosperity. A hearing aid is an electro-acoustic gadget, whic...
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... hearing aids give straightforward enhancement of the sound grabbed by the microphone and reproduced louder by the receiver or loud speaker. The amplification can be shaped marginally to consider distinctive hearing losses in spite of the fact that there is not always much flexibility. Many types of analog hearing aids can be programed by the user. They have a microchip which enables the device to have settings customized for various listening situations, for example, in a quiet place like in a library, or in a noisy place like in a hotel, or in an expansive region like a soccer field. The analog programmable hearing aids can store different programs for the different situations [7]. The client can easily select these modes when his listerning condition changes. An overview of analog hearing aid is shown in Fig 6. Digital hearing aids take the sound waves from the microphone and change them to advanced digital binary code by the utilization of digital signal processing (DSP) strategies. This computerized data would then be able to be controlled in numerous sophisticated ways by the micro chip inside the amplifier, before being transformed back into ordinary analog signals and conveyed to the speakers. An overview of digital hearing aid is shown in Fig 7. Digital hearing aids, usually offer more highlights and adaptability, and are commonly client configurable. They have various memories to store more condition specific settings than analog hearing aids. They can also utilize modern algorithms to recognize and decrease background noise, to expel feedback and whistling, or to specifically distinguish the sound of voices and track them utilizing directional microphones . The distinctive aspects relating to digital hearing aid systems incorporate auditory compensation, feedback cancellation, noise reduction, speech enhancement etc ...
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... Thus, electronic wearable or prosthetics hearing aids are the best solutions for the improvement of speech quality and intelligibility so far. Modern hearing aids as shown in Fig. 1, includes of digital signal processing (DSP) to improve intelligibility, AGC, analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and automatic environmental classification or speech enhancement systems [3]. Since applying a highquality audio digital signal to the DSP reduces processing power and processing time and on the other side, the low supply voltage degrades the performance of circuits. ...
This paper presents a fast configurable automatic gain control (AGC) with strong focus on fast acting control and low power consumption. This AGC includes two paths, main amplification path and gain adjusting path. Using the gain adjusting path through an extra amplifier provides a way for tracking and comparing the input signal with four adjusted thresholds to be judged for selecting the appropriate gain value for main amplification path. This mechanism of gain control is done by reorganization of input level and changing the resistance of feedback in main amplification path to generate smooth variation gain, without any interruption or delay in signal flow through the variable gain amplifier. Moreover, in order to protect the user from intense transients in variations of the input signal level, output level of variable gain amplifier is directly monitored using optimum threshold to reduce the overall gain using feedback control mechanism. The minimum power is consumed by gain adjusting path has almost no considerable on power consumption, it greatly improves hearing quality. Meanwhile, using a large size PMOS differential pair at the input improved the noise performance. Proposed AGC designed and simulated in TSMC 130-nm CMOS process. The post layout simulation results the maximal SNR is 84.6 dB in 100 Hz–19.6 kHz band-width and the total consumption power of this AGC is 78 μW at 1 V supply voltage. In addition, its gain is varied smoothly between 20 to 57 dB. Achieved results demonstrate that designed AGC meet the requirement of analog front end of hearing aids.
... of the prototype filter are taken and (L − 1) null samples are inserted in between the selected coefficients [32]. The remaining sections of this paper are organized as follows: Section 2 gives an overview of the methodology of the proposed reconfigurable filter bank structure. ...
A reconfigurable hearing aid is a generic type that can be used for various hearing disabilities without modifying the device hardware. This requires several trials to identify the best matching with the impaired person's audiogram. The objective of this paper is to propose a novel reconfigurable hearing aid of low complexity with auto-adapting capability which makes it suitable for different types of hearing disabilities ranging from mild to severe intensities. The audio spectrum is divided into three regions and for each region, four different schemes are proposed. An automatic selection of the optimum scheme is proposed for all the regions based on hearing thresholds. Octave and fractional interpolation techniques are performed on a Parks-McClellan based prototype filter to generate the various sub-bands in the reconfigurable filter bank structure. The proposed structure uses only 18 coefficient multipliers which save up to 92% of multipliers when compared to other designs. The delay and matching errors are within the globally accepted limits. The hardware implementation executed on Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA development board has reaffirmed that the structure is compact and power-efficient. The proposed auto-reconfigurable structure can be used for various types of hearing impairments and can avoid the manual interventions for the selection of schemes in audiogram matching. This in turn minimizes the time to establish the best match with the audiogram. Since the proposed structure has minimal complexity, cost-effective implementation of the device is also possible.
... The severe people can only understand the amplified speech and the profound people have problem of even understanding the amplified speech [1]. [8] shown in Figure 4. It cannot differentiate between the wanted (speech) signal and the unwanted (noise) signal, amplifying both sound and noise and therefore noise can get way in the good conversation. ...
... Some of the programmable analog hearing aid devices are also available which work better simply on analog hearing aid device. The digital hearing aid device was presented for the first time to the public in 1996, which was fully digital and a programmable model, and which contained greater flexibility and adjusting finely according to the patient's needs than the analog hearing aid device [8]. It is used to amplify the speech signal and reduce the noise of the signal. ...
... Digital hearing aid device is very advance than analog hearing aid using complex processing during amplification of sound and noise reduction algorithm to reduce the different types of noise. Digital Aid used multi memories, each memory was programmed according to their function to use in specific places and change memory by pressing a button [8]. Each memory worked on specific place. ...
... Similar to the expression in Eq. (3), the z-transform of the expression in Eq. (9) which is an upsampler is stated as follows [8]: ...
... where L denotes the length of the filter which must be even, and c is a constant with c jj¼ 1;H 0 Àz ðÞ is the flipped and conjugated version of H 0 z ðÞ ,H 0 z ðÞis the conjugated version of H 0 z ðÞ , andH 1 z ðÞis the conjugated version of H 1 z ðÞ . The condition in Eq. (20) also describe the necessary requirement for a filter bank to be paraunitary (which we shall examine in the next section), i.e., the lowpass filter H 0 z ðÞsatisfy the following power symmetry of halfband condition [8,9]: ...
The technique of filter banks has been extensively applied in signal processing in the last three decades. It provides a very efficient way of signal decomposition, characterization, and analysis. It is also the main driving idea in almost all frequency division multiplexing technologies. With the advent of wavelets and subsequent realization of its wide area of application, filter banks became even more important as it has been proven to be the most efficient way a wavelet system can be implemented. In this chapter, we present an analysis of the design of a wavelet transform using the filter bank technique. The analysis covers the different sections which make up a filter bank, i.e., analysis filters and synthesis filters, and also the upsamplers and downsamplers. We also investigate the mathematical properties of wavelets, which make them particularly suitable in the design of wavelets. The chapter then focuses attention to the particular role the analysis and the synthesis filters play in the design of a wavelet transform using filter banks. The precise procedure by which the design of a wavelet using filter banks can be achieved is presented in the last section of this chapter, and it includes the mathematical techniques involved in the design of wavelets.
Hearing is one of the most crucial sense for human beings as it connects them to external world. Hearing loss impairs communication which is an essential human function. Hearing disability has massive negative impact on life, work, physical and emotional well-being as well as relationships and is rated as the third most common health problem affecting relations and quality of life. Hearing aid devices can selectively intensify sound signals in order to suit the hearing characteristics of the patients and is a boon for people with hearing misfortune. However, there is a huge gap between the potential and actual hearing aid users. This work provides a critical look into the various challenges posed by hearing aid users, the comparative of the existing state-of-art hearing devices and throws light on bottlenecks in hearing aid design and performance. Filter bank, being the holy grail of Digital Hearing aid, needs special attention for improving the hearing aid performance. Reconfigurability is the need of the hour for providing flexible and tailormade hearing aids that can suit individual hearing requirements. The paper discusses and gives an in-depth insight into the techniques for reconfigurable Filter bank design for performance augmentationin terms of parameters like Signal quality, Auditory compensation, Computational and Hardware complexity, area, speed, power, etc.
Hearing aids are medical devices used to overcome the deficits associated with hearing loss, the commonest sensory disability, which is neither curable nor reversible. The World Health Organization estimates that over 6% of the world's population have disabling hearing loss. Therefore, more and more hard of hearing people benefit from hearing aids and thus, the hearing aids manufactures rely on the most recent advances in technology to provide devices with advanced features, allowing better communication and overall better lifestyle of hearing aid users and society as a whole.
These efforts are accompanied by both power and size considerations, and nowadays the most common options rely on Zn-air battery and rechargeable Li-ion and Ag–Zn batteries. However, the passive direct methanol fuel cell is an emergent alternative technology, as sustainable power source for compact portable electronic applications. This is particularly useful in developing countries and isolated areas where the grid to recharge the batteries is unreliable or unavailable, physically or economically. This paper intends to give an overview on the technological issues associated with modern hearing aids power-up options, their societal impact and the R&D challenges direct methanol fuel cell need to overcome in the pursuit of more sustainable and efficient devices. As it is discussed, these can provide a market niche for innovative passive direct methanol fuel cell deployment and commercialization, in order to respond to societal and medical industry requirements.
