title: Industrial wideband noise reduction for hearing aids using a headset with adaptive-feedback active noise cancellation.
abstract: High-intensity noises are a health hazard for industrial workers, and hearing protection is necessary to prevent hearing loss. Passive methods, such as ear muffs, are ineffective against low-frequency noise. Moreover, many hearing-impaired workers must wear hearing aids to enable communication at their workplace, and such aids can amplify ambient noise. To overcome this problem, the present study developed a headset equipped with a digital signal processing system to implement adaptive-feedback active noise cancellation (AFANC) to reduce low-frequency noise. The proposed AFANC headset was effective against wideband industrial noise, with a maximum noise spectrum power reduction of 30 dB. Furthermore, when used with a hearing aid, it improved the speech signal-to-noise ratio by up to 14 dB. These results suggest that a headset with AFANC would be useful for hearing protection in workplaces with high levels of low-frequency industrial noise, especially for hearing-impaired workers.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, China.
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: P C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Young
mesh_terms: D004430:Ear Protective Devices; D004582:Electronics, Medical; D004867:Equipment Design; D005246:Feedback; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006317:Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced / Q000517:prevention & control; D006801:Humans; D009623:Noise, Occupational; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control