Experimentation of a novel sound system to enhanced listening for hearing impaired

• Main Author: Peh, Keryn En Lin
• Other Authors: Gan Woon Seng
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/63506
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As human ages, the hearing ability decreases. This project is about improving and experimenting on the novel sound system for hearing impaired. As many hearing impaired would not feel comfortable wearing a hearing aid, therefore, they could not enjoy the normal entertainment as much as the normal people, for example television program, due to the reason that television program is catered towards people who have a normal range of hearing. With the combination of conventional loudspeakers and PAL loudspeakers, whereby the PAL loudspeakers are directed towards the direction of the hearing impaired, it could compensate the loss of hearing of each individual hearing impaired as the PAL loudspeakers would compensate the loss of hearing for the hearing impaired. Teensy 3.1 is used to mimic an audiometer as it is a cheaper alternative as compared to the audiometer in the market. Each hearing impaired would have different hearing profile as they perceive sound differently. The written program would consist different frequency filters that has different frequency gain. A 5dB gain can be increased manually using the serial monitor of Arduino. The gain would increase manually till the sound can be heard. In this project, experiments are also done to see which PAL loudspeakers works best and fits the criteria of the project.