2016年10月17日
Wearable sound localization assistive device for the hearing impaired
25th Brazilian Congress on Biomedical Engineering
- 記述言語
- 英語
- 会議種別
- ポスター発表
- 主催者
- Brazilian Society of Biomedical Engineering
- 開催地
- Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil
The sense of hearing can provide immediate information about remote events, even when outside of the field of vision and beyond obstacles, facilitating functioning in uncontrolled environments. Hearing impairment can thus have a huge disabling effect on an individual. This paper proposes a wearable self-contained dedicated device capable of full-plane sound localization. The system, shaped as a glass frame, uses only four microphones spaced by 10 mm, and is initially targeted at a resolution of 45°. The individual binaural angles are calculated by a process loosely based on the human hearing system. These angles are then combined in order to determine the final direction. A prototype of the proposed system was implemented using 3D printing and MEMS microphones. Experiments with the prototype in a reverberant environment show an error of 6.73° when it is tested standalone and 21.16° when tested in a dummy head.