Portable hearing laboaratory for developping and evaluating novel hearing aid algorithms
Chaslav V. Pavlovic, Reza Kassayan, Nicholas Michael, Hendrik Kayser, Volker Hohmann · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2023
We report here on the further development of our portable hearing aid research platform achived in Phase III NIDCD project R44DC016247. We also report on a large number of academic studies using the platform around the world. The project builds on the openMHA distribution for ARM processors included in an optimized Linux system developed in our other project R01DC015429. Thus we provide a complete wearable software-hardware fast hearing aid device needed for development of new innovative solutions for assisted hearing. We refer to this device as the PHL, short for Portable Hearing Laboratory. Throught the project we have followed the requirement that the platform should be “acoustically perfect.” That is able to transmit and process signals without audible distortion or noise beyond what is required to compensate for hearing loss. Any new sophisticated algorithms (such as those based on the AI) if run on a platform of inferior quality will adapt for that inferior structire and fail to capitalize on the reach processing capabilities of the modern hearing aids. We also report on a family of devices that can be used either with PHL or with other processors to provide supperior sound; such as bunaural BTE multimicrophone headsets. Last but not least we will present new devices connecting these auxiliary devices to powefull desktop computers for laboratory studies.