Industrial wideband noise reduction for hearing aids using a headset with adaptive-feedback active noise cancellation.
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.
Lin
J H
JH
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, China.
Li
P C
PC
Tang
S T
ST
Liu
P T
PT
Young
S T
ST
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