The purpose of this project is the design and development of headset hearing aids. These aids will be designed to be entirely head-worn, resembling some consumer radio products, with electronics integrated with the headset to form a single unit. The basic version of these aids will incorporate two directional microphones, independent signal processing of left and right channels, and binaural stimulation via lightweight comfortable consumer-type headphones. Advanced units will employ arrays of microphones to narrow their acceptance angle for noise reduction. The results of Phase I demonstrated that sufficient insertion gain (35-40 dB) can be obtained through such systems to meet the amplification needs of persons with mild and moderate hearing loss. Currently-available """"""""personal amplifiers"""""""" are cumbersome and poorly designed as hearing aids. The headset units-we propose to make will be designed with both amplification and appearance in mind. Headset hearing aids promise to be an attractive alternative to traditional ear-level aids in terms of cost, comfort, ease of use, and performance for persons with mild or moderate degrees of hearing loss.
