Directionality characteristics of the Tympan open-source hearing aid and earpieces
Joshua M. Alexander · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2021
Directional systems in hearing aids are critical for improving speech understanding in the presence of background noise and competing talkers. Tympan is an open-source research platform for speech processing and hearing improvement. The latest Tympan version (Rev E) includes earpieces with a front and a rear microphone, allowing researchers to explore the effects of different directional settings using a realistic hearing aid configuration. The directionality characteristics of the Tympan earpieces were evaluated using a KEMAR in a semi-reverberant sound field. To demonstrate the functionality of Tympan’s directionality features, different software settings were manipulated, including the relative delays and gains between the two microphones. Results will be discussed along with considerations for more advanced directional solutions, such as automatic directional switching, adaptive directivity patterns, binaural signal processing, and beamforming.