Sound Source Location Device

Project Summary

Auditory impairment conditions, including bilateral or unilateral hearing loss, inhibit the ability to identify surrounding sounds due to a lack of directional awareness and an excess of background noise in an environment. Current technologies, such as hearing aids, are unable to provide enhancement for specific noises due to a lack of sound location functionality. The team will investigate the technical means to identify the direction of a sound of interest, and, when pointed in that direction, enhance the sound while attenuating background noise. The long-term goal of this project is to implement this system into a wearable device in a
way that is comfortable for the user.

Design Goal

The project goal is to create a proof-of-principle device to aid users with varying degrees of hearing loss in social settings. The device seeks to identify the direction of arrival (DOA) of incoming speech, provide a directional indicator to the user, and amplify the sound signal while attenuating background noise.

Design Constraints

• The device shall incorporate multiple MEMs microphone into an array
• Spacing and angle between microphones shall vary to determine the effect on DOA accuracy and source sound enhancement
• The device shall output an indicator that displays DOA.
• The device shall target to enhance sounds located in front of the user by 3 decibels.
• The device shall target to attenuate sounds coming from other angles by 6 decibels.
• The device shall primarily function for frequencies associated with human speech.