We present in this paper a new kind of laserbased microphone device capable of detecting minute displacements of the microphone diaphragm, leading to drastically improved sensitivity in detecting the impinging pressure waves like acoustic waves and water waves over existing state-of-the-art laser and fiber-optic microphones. The drastically improved sensitivity in detecting diaphragm surface di...

Single microphone speech enhancement systems have typically shown limited performance, while multiple microphone systems based on a least-squares error criterion have shown encouraging results in some contexts. In this paper we formulate a new approach to multiple microphone speech enhancement. Specifically, we formulate a maximum likelihood (ML) problem for estimating the parameters needed for...

Probe-microphone measurements are typically made with behind-the-ear (BTE) and in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aids with the loudspeaker located at 0-degrees or 45-degrees azimuth at head level and the reference microphone positioned on the head near the hearing aid microphone. With body-worn instruments, these conditions may not accurately reflect in situ hearing aid performance. This study compared ...

1 Modern hearing aid technology allows the response pattern of a multi-microphone directional array to be varied in response to the acoustic environment. For example, some systems attempt to identify noise sources and respond by steering an acoustic null or nulls formed by the directional microphones toward the noise source. While this technology holds the promise of improved speech intelligibi...

This study shows that a small electret condenser microphone connected to a notebook or a personal computer (PC) has a prominent response in the extremely low frequency region in a specific environment. It confines most acoustic waves within a tiny air cell as follows. The air cell is constructed by drilling a small hole in a digital versatile disk (DVD) plate. A small speaker and an electret co...

Hearing-impaired listeners often have great difficulty understanding speech in situations with background noise (e.g., meetings, parties). Conventional hearing aids offer insufficient directivity to significantly reduce background noise relative to the desired speech signal. Based on array techniques, microphone prototypes have been developed with strongly directional characteristics to be inco...

The primary purpose of this study was to compare the overall listening benefit in diffuse noise provided by dual-microphone technology in an in-the-ear (ITE) hearing instrument to that provided by dual-microphone technology in a behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing instrument. Further, the study was designed to determine whether the use of the dual-microphone + the manufacturer's party response algorit...

Accuracy of automatic speaker recognition (ASV) systems degrades severely in the presence of background noise. In this paper, we study the use of additional side information provided by a body-conducted sensor, throat microphone. Throat microphone signal is much less affected by background noise in comparison to acoustic microphone signal. This makes throat microphones potentially useful for fe...

The microphone in a fully implantable hearing device (FIHD) is generally implanted under the skin covering the temporal bone. However, the implanted microphone can be affected by the skin, which causes both sound attenuation and distortion, particularly at high frequencies. As the degree of attenuation and distortion through the skin is severe, speech quality evaluation parameters are needed fo...