• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.535-544
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• 1996

In this paper, we analyzed the coil-magnet type vibrating transducer for the implantable middle ear hearing aid which is appropriate for patient's hearing level, and an experimental transducer system is designed For the objective and quantitative analysis of the transducer, a theoretical equivalent model containing coil, magneto and inner ear is developed To perform effective evaluation of the transducer, a transforming ratio Tr is introduced and its range that is suitable for practical implantable middle ear hearing device is foun4 The result of applying physical parameters of ear system to the proposed analytical model shows that frequency response of the coil magrlet type vibrator is predominantly governed by resistive impedance of the coil rather than inertia effect of the magnet and the inner parameters. In addition, we realized an experimental middle ear hearing aid system to show the theoretical validity of designed system and this will provide the basis of the development for actually implantable system.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.150-155
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• 2013

Recently, various hearing aids are developed to overcome hearing loss. There are available hearing aids, such as air conduction hearing aid, implantable middle ear hearing aid and so on. But air conduction hearing aid is inconvenience caused by howling, and ossicle chain driving type implantable middle ear hearing aid has some week point due to problem of possible nercobiosis of coupling spot along incus long process. In recent years, in order to improve these shortcomings round window (RW) driving hearing aid has been paying attention. In this paper, the physical cochlear model is proposed for a performance evaluation of the RW driving hearing aids of a transducer. In order to verify an experiment proposed on a performance of physical cochlear model, the transducer which has ossicles characteristics is used. By measuring and comparing the frequency characteristics of transducer with ossicles and human temporal bone, performance of physical cochlear model was verified. As from the result of experiment, it is expected that an implemented cochlear model is useful for evaluating characteristics of RW transducer.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.49 no.10
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• pp.583-588
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• 2000

This paper presents the design and fabrication of micro electromagnetic vibration silicon elastic body characterized with small size, high efficiency and selective frequency bandwidth for Bio-MENS applications, such as implantable middle ear hearing aid. The presented electromagnetic vibration transducer that composed of wounded coil, permanent magnet and 4-beam cross type elastic body is fabricated by using of micromachining technology. The fabricated transducer has experimental characteristics, that is 5 nm/mA of an energy trasfer rate at the frequency range of 100∼2800 Hz. It has a size of $2{\times}2{\times}2.5\;mm^3$.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.375-385
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• 2016

Recently, several implantable hearing aids such as cochlear implant, middle ear implant, etc., which have a module receiving power and signal from outside the body, are frequently used to treat the hearing impaired patients. Most of implantable hearing aids are adopted permanent magnet pairs to couple between internal and external devices for the enhancement of power transmission. Generally, the internal device which containing the magnet in the center of receiving coil is implanted under the skin of human temporal bone. In case of MRI scanning of a patient with the implantable hearing aid, however, homogeneous magnetic fields of the MRI might be interfered by the implanted magnet. For the above reasons, the MR image is degraded by large area of artifact, so that diagnostics are almost impossible in deteriorated region. In this paper, we proposed an external coil system that can reduce the artifact of MR image due to the internal coupling magnet. By finite element analysis estimating area of MR artifact according to varying current and shape of the external coil, optimal coil parameters were extracted. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed external coil system was verified by confirming the artifact at real MRI scan.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.487-495
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• 1998

In this paper, a new type of implantable middle ear hearing aid, which consists of external loop coil, a small magnet and a simple external device, is proposed. The internal device of proposed type consists of only a small magnet and the external device does not need to be positioned behind the ear or in the ear canal. The proposed type is excellent in cosmetic sides and very convenient to use, because the external device can be hidden in upper garment and collar of clothes. Also, purposely this type doesn't need to be small on the size of battery, which means it has longer battery life. Therefore, the battery is not necessary to be charged frequently. It also can solve the difficulty of gap calibration at surgical operation which conventional Implantable middle. Therefore, the battery is not necessary to be charged frequently. It also can solve the difficulty of gap calibration at surgical operation which conventional implantable middle ear hearing aid has. We investigate the performance of proposed implantable middle ear bearing aid and we analyze that proposed type is appropriate for mild and severe hearing impaired person and the result of experiment showed the accuracy of our analysis. For the validation of our analysis we used the temporal bone at the experiment and confirm that ossicles can be vibrated when the proposed system In startled in the body.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1996 no.05
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• pp.243-247
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• 1996

Electro-magnetic type implantable middle ear hearing aid has been empirically developed. But for further improvement of the system performance more quantitative approach is necessary. In this paper, we analyzed vibrating transducer which is most important to design the system, appropriate for given hearing level, and implemented it. Using this transducer, implantable hearing aid system are developed. To verify the design process, we experimented with driving metal strip by the developed system. From the experiment, frequency response of implemented device showed good characteristic at audio frequency and we confirmed that each part of the developed system operated well.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.127-132
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• 2005

Transducers for implantable hearing aids need to be small and to have good performance in frequency responses and vibration properties. From this viewpoint, we Proposed a multi-layer actuator with the piezoelectric single crystal, PMN-PT. for the implantable hearing aid. and verified its adequacy through finite element analyses and experiments. PMN-PT multi-layer actuator samples were fabricated by stacking fourteen layers of the PMN-PT crystal. Each layer were $0.2{\cal}mm$ thick and the actuator sample was $2.8{\cal}mm$ thick in total. We evaluated the performance of the PMN-PT actuator through impedance analyses and vibration displacement measurements, and compared the result with that of a PZT actuator. Results of all the process confirmed the feasibility of the PMN-PT actuator as a good transducer for an implantable hearing aid.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.63-71
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• 2017

In this paper, a signal processing circuit for semi-implantable middle ear hearing device is designed using the TCBT which is recently proposed for a new middle ear transducer that can be implanted at round window of cochlea. The designed semi-implantable hearing device transmits digital sound signal from external device located at behind the ear to the internal device implanted under the skin using inductive coupling link methods with high efficiency. The coils and signal processing circuits are designed and implemented considering the total transmission and reception distance including skin thickness of temporal bone for the semi-implantable hearing device. And also, to improve the data transmission efficiency, the output circuits which can supply sufficient signal power is designed. In order to confirm operation of semi-implantable hearing device using inductive coupling link, the circuit analysis was performed using PSpice, and the performance was verified by implementing a signal processing board of an available size.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.923-929
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• 2019

In this paper, biomimetic based physical ear model proposed for measuring the characteristics of a hybrid-acoustic sensor for fully implantable middle-ear hearing aid. The proposed physical ear model consists of the external ear, middle-ear, and cochlea. The physical ear model was implemented based on the anatomical structure and CT images of the human ear. To confirm the characteristics of the ear model, the vibrational characteristics of the stapes was measured after applying sound pressure to the tympanic membrane. The measured results were compared with the vibrational characteristics of the human temporal bone specified by ASTM F2504-05. Through the comparison results, the feasibility of the proposed ear model was confirmed. Then, after attaching the hybrid-acoustic sensor to the ear model, the output characteristics of the ECM and acceleration sensor were measured according to the sound pressure. The measured results were compared with previous studies using human temporal bone, and the usefulness of the proposed physical ear model was verified through the analysis results.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.361-368
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• 2010

ACROSS device, which is composed of an implantable microphone, a signal processor, and a vibrating transducer, is a fullyimplantable middle ear hearing device(F-IMEHD) for the recovery of patients with hearing loss. And since a microphone is implanted under skin and tissue at the temporal bones, the amplitude of the sound wave is attenuated by absorption and scattering. And the vibrating transducer attached to the ossicular chain caused also the different displacement from characteristic of the stapes. For the gain control of auditory signals, most of implantable hearing devices with the digital audio signal processor still apply to fitting rules of conventional hearing aid without regard to the effect of the implanted microphone and the vibrating transducer. So it should be taken into account the effect of the implantable microphone and the vibrating transducer to use the conventional audio fitting rule. The aim of this study was to measure gain characteristics caused by the implanted microphone and the vibrating transducer attached to the ossicle chains for the gain compensation of ACROSS device. Differential floating mass transducers (DFMT) of ACROSS device were clipped on four cadaver temporal bones. And after placing the DFMT on them, displacements of the ossicle chain with the DFMT operated by 1 $mA_{peak}$ current was measured using laser Doppler vibrometer. And the sensitivity of microphones under the sampled pig skin and the skin of 3 rat back were measured by stimulus of pure tones in frequency from 0.1 to 8.9 kHz. And we confirmed that the microphone implanted under skin showed poorer frequency response in the acoustic high-frequency band than it in the low- to mid- frequency band, and the resonant frequency of the stapes vibration was changed by attaching the DFMT on the incus, the displacement of the DFMT driven with 1 $mA_{rms}$ was higher by the amount of about 20 dB than that of cadaver's stapes driven by the sound presssure of 94 dB SPL in resonance frequency range.