This I-Corp project investigates sensor systems for enhancing communication in noisy environments through real-time beamforming. The investigation will determine potential of a system incorporating multiple microphones, a field programmable gate array, and associated electronics to implement beamforming in real time to enhance signal-to-noise ratio in listening to acoustic sources. The system is best described as "acoustic binoculars" as it enables the listener to hear soft sounds originating away from the listener or normal sounds in noisy environments. The proposed innovation addresses the problem of directing listening attention in noisy environments and in amplifying quiet sources. It overcomes shortcomings in existing products for acoustic beamforming, which include significant computational delay, presentation of only the direction of an acoustic source (without providing the beamformed signal for listening), and lack of scalability to large numbers of microphones. The prototype system is scalable and performs beamforming in real time; hence, it has the capacity to increase signal-to-noise ratio dramatically as well as to provide the beamformed signal 100 kHz data rates for listening.
The technology has potential impact in the form of a number of products, e.g., listening devices for pilots, passengers, and operators of noisy equipment/vehicles to enhance listening attention in noisy environments and devices for audio-based surveillance from a safe distance. The proposed technology may also extend to medical and structural ultrasonic imaging devices, although existing prototypes have been directed only towards acoustic beamforming. Extending the real-time beamforming architecture to ultrasonic imaging (medical or structure imaging), provides the potential to enhance images derived from what is one of the safest non-invasive imaging methods in existence.
The goal of NSF I-Corps is "to foster entrepreneurship that will lead to the commercialization of technology that has been supported previously by NSF-funded research." This particular I-Corps project enabled participants to conduct activities related to commercialization of a technology that will enhance medical ultrasound imaging. Through the I-Corps workshop activities and subsequent customer discovery activities, we interviewed over 190 people, including radiologists, hospital administrations, and women, in order to validate a value proposition and customer for our technology. Through these interviews, we learned that existing breast screening technologies are inadequate for the 40% of women with mammographically dense breast tissue and that these women are generally at higher risk for developing breast cancer than the general population. We also learned that ultrasound as an adjunct to mammography can improve detection of cancer, but also increases the false positive rate – lesions that are identified as cancer but are really benign - and results in many unnecessary biopsies. The increased false positive rate makes medical ultrasound for breast cancer screening unacceptable to physicians and causes pain and anxiety in women who undergo procedures to biopsy benign cysts that cannot be distinguished from cancerous lesions within an ultrasound image. The intellectual merit of the project is the development of a technology that focuses on improving clarity of an ultrasound image so that physicians can better distinguish between benign and cancerous lesions. Our I-Corps experience led us to found a new company to commercialize our technology. The broader impacts of the project are 1) the opportunity for participants to learn how to transition technology to a commercial enterprise, and 2) the application of the technology to an unmet need within women’s health care.
