Patel Kashyap, Panahi Issa M S
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2020 Jul;2020:968-971. doi: 10.1109/EMBC44109.2020.9176368.
A compressor in hearing aid devices (HADs) is responsible for mapping the dynamic range of input signals to the residual dynamic range of hearing-impaired (HI) patients. Gains and parameters of the compressor are set according to the HI patient's preferences. In different surroundings depending upon noise level, the patient may seek to tune the parameters to improve performance. Traditionally, fitting of the hearing aids is done by an audiologist using hearing aid software and the HI patient's opinion at a clinic. In this paper, we propose a frequency-based multi-band compressor implemented as a smartphone application, which can be used as an alternative to that of the traditional HADs. The proposed solution allows the user to tune the compression parameters for each band along with a choice of compression speed and fitting strategy. Exploiting smartphone processing and hardware capabilities, the application can be used for bilateral hearing loss. The performance of this easy-to-use smartphone-based application is compared with traditional HADs using a hearing aid test system. Objective and subjective evaluations are also carried out to quantify the performance.
助听器设备（HAD）中的压缩器负责将输入信号的动态范围映射到听力受损（HI）患者的残余动态范围。压缩器的增益和参数根据HI患者的偏好进行设置。在不同的环境中，根据噪声水平，患者可能会尝试调整参数以提高性能。传统上，助听器的验配由听力学家在诊所使用助听器软件并结合HI患者的意见来完成。在本文中，我们提出了一种基于频率的多频段压缩器，它被实现为一款智能手机应用程序，可作为传统HAD的替代方案。所提出的解决方案允许用户为每个频段调整压缩参数，同时可以选择压缩速度和验配策略。利用智能手机的处理和硬件能力，该应用程序可用于双侧听力损失。使用助听器测试系统将这款易于使用的基于智能手机的应用程序的性能与传统HAD进行比较。还进行了客观和主观评估以量化性能。
