RESEARCH PROPOSAL

To: Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan From: Muhammad Ahsan Altaf, MS leading PhD Candidate Program Applied For: MS leading PhD Electrical and Electronic Engineering Research Group: Signal Processing and Communication Systems

PROPOSED RESEARCH TOPIC: Digital Signal Processing in Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants

PURPOSES There has been much interest to study of Digital Signal Processing techniques for hearing aids. The research work in this field is initiated in the mid late 1980s. However, it was not until 1995 that technology was matured to a level where size and power consideration made a market introduction of Hearing Aids with full Digital Signal Processing possible. More and more Hearing Aids are turning digital now-a-days as the digital technology is getting cheaper. Current technology enables Hearing Aids that fit completely in the ear canal and the introduction of truly programmable platforms like FPGAs and DSP kits allowed the development of Advanced Digital Signal Processing algorithms that provide a natural sound picture with increased speech intelligibility and comfort to the hearing impaired user. Such signal processing technology is now being adopted in cochlear implants. Cochlear implants need a sound processing strategy that converts acoustic signals into electrical signals that are applied to the electrodes placed in the cochlea. The design of such sound processing strategies is a real challenge.

BACKGROUND/ LITERATURE SURVEY Digital Signal Processing in Bio-medical Engineering Digital Signal Processing techniques emerge as a useful concept in several areas of biomedical in last few decades [1-9]. The Digital Signal Processing techniques play an important role in bio-medical engineering and now-a-days a lot of research is done in this field e.g., use of wavelets transforms for ECG characterization [1, 2]. Bi-spectrum estimation is also a very useful technique in bio-medical engineering [3]. The application of spectral analysis and the potential of new time-frequency representations and cardiac acoustic mapping to better understand the

genesis and transmission of heart sounds and murmurs within the heart-thorax acoustic system is only possible by Digital Signal Processing Techniques. The most recent developments is the application of linear predictive coding, spectral analysis, time-frequency representation techniques, and pattern recognition for the detection and follow-up of native and prosthetic valve degeneration and dysfunction. The analysis of macromolecules, i.e., DNA and RNA, using Digital Signal Processing Techniques is an important area of research in bio-medical engineering [4]. Digital Signal Processing in Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants Digital Signal Processing techniques play an important role in Hearing Aid and Cochlear Implants equipment as the Digital Signal Processing hardware is getting cheaper and the Digital Signal Processing techniques are getting mature. A lot of research is going on in this field. Adaptive filters are commonly used to cancel acoustic feedback in Hearing Aids [6]. Rate-Constrained Collaborative Noise Reduction for Wireless Hearing Aids is also been investigated [7]. Now-a-days wavelets transforms are been used in the design of Hearing Aids to improve their performance. Genetic algorithms are also been used for better performance of Hearing Aids [8]. Digital Signal Processing is getting its place in bio-medical and there is lot of room of more research in it. More and more techniques should be investigated for better and better performance of different bio-medical devices especially Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants.

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