• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.59-65
• /
• 2008

Nowadays, implantable hearing aids have been developed to solve the problems of conventional hearing aids. In case of fully implantable hearing aids, an implantable microphone is necessary to receive sound signal beneath the skin. Normally, an implantable microphone has poor frequency response characteristics in high frequency bands of acoustic signal due to the high frequency attenuation effect of skin after implantation to human body. In this paper, the implantable microphone is designed to reduce the high frequency attenuation effect of a skin by putting its resonance frequency at the attenuated range through a finite element analysis (FEA) simulation. The designed implantable microphone through the simulated results has been fabricated by manufacturing process using bio-compatible materials. By the several in-vitro experiments with pig skin, it has been verified that the designed implantable microphone has a resonance frequency around the starting part of the attenuated range and reduces the attenuation effect.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.189-199
• /
• 2016

Many implantable hearing aids are being developed as alternatives to conventional hearing aids which has inconveniences for use and social stigma that make hearing-impaired people avoid to wear it. Particularly, the fully-implantable middle ear hearing devices (F-IMEHD) are being actively studied for mixed or sensorineural hearing impaired people. In development of F-IMEHD, the most difficult problem is improving the performance of implantable microphone. Recently, Cho et al. have studied the tympanic membrane installed microphone which has better sensitivity and is easier to operate on patient than the microphone implanted under the skin. But, it may cause howling problem due to the feedback signal via oval window and ossicle chain from the transducer on round window in the middle ear cavity, therefore, a feedback canceller is necessary. In this paper, we designed NLMS (normalized least mean square) adaptive feedback canceller for F-IMEHD with tympanic membrane installed microphone and a transducer implemented at round window, and computer simulation was performed to verify its operation. The designed adaptive feedback canceller has a delay filter, a 64 point FIR fixed filter and a 8-tap adaptive FIR filter. Computer simulation of the feedback path is modeled by using the data obtained through human cadaver experiment.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.29-34
• /
• 2010

The fully implantable hearing devices (FIHDs) have been studied to compensate the defect of conventional hearing aids. Typically, a microphone for FIHDs was implanted under the skin of the temporal bone. So, implantable microphone characteristics can be affected by the eating food, chattering teeth and moving artifact. In this paper, we fabricated the physical model that was similar to characteristics of human temporal bone and skin, and we measured implanted microphone sensitivity for effect of bone conducted noise signal. For the measurement of microphone sensitivity, we applied 1 kHz pure sounds that were transmitted to implanted microphone and sine wave vibrations of varied frequency were simultaneously transmitted through the artificial bone. As a result, sensitivity of implanted microphone can be modified by bone conducted signal and this phenomenon was confirmed at varied frequency band.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.139-144
• /
• 2005

An implantable microphone that can be utilized as part of a totally implantable hearing aid is designed and implemented. The proposed microphone is implanted in the center of the pinna, and designed to ensure the speech frequency range and the appropriate sensitivity. The characteristics of the proposed microphone are evaluated using a finite element analysis (FEA). The microphone is composed of a small electric condenser microphone, titanium case 6.2mm in diameter and 3mm high, and $10{\mu}m$ SUS316L vibrating membrane in contact with hypodermic tissue to maintain the sensitivity of the microphone. The microphone components are all made of biocompatible materials, then the assembled microphone is hermetically sealed using a polymer and ceramic. Experiments with the fabricated microphone confirm an operational bandwidth of up to 5kHz without any decline of sensitivity in 6mm of hypodermic tissue.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.27-33
• /
• 2009

Generally, implantable microphone has been implanted in the temporal bone for implantable middle ear hearing devices (IMEHDs). In this case, the microphone's membrane can be damaged and can be generated biological noise. In order to overcome the these problems, the location of implanted microphone should be changed. As an alternative, the microphone can be implanted in the external auditory canal. However, the sound emission can be produced because of vibration transducer toward reverse direction from the tympanic membrane to the external auditory canal. In this paper, an amount of the emitted sound is measured using a probe microphone as the changing the position of microphone in the external auditory canal of a physical ear model, which is similar to acoustical and vibratory properties of the human ear. Through the measured value, the location of the microphone was assumed in the external auditory canal. According to the analysis, the microphone input sound can be decreased when microphone position become more distance from the tympanic membrane in the auditory canal. However, the external auditory canal is not appropriated to implantable microphone position, because sound emission is not completely eliminated.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.144-150
• /
• 2012

A microphone for fully implantable hearing device was generally implanted under the skin of the temporal bone. So, the implanted microphone's characteristics can be affected by the accompanying noise due to masticatory movement. In this paper, the implantable microphone with 2-channels structure was designed for reduction of the generated noise signal by masticatory movement. And an experimental model for generation of the noise by masticatory movement was developed with considering the characteristics of human temporal bone and skin. Using the model, the speech signal by a speaker and the artificial noise by a vibrator were supplied simultaneously into the experimental model, the electrical signals were measured at the proposed microphone. The collected signals were processed using a general adaptive filter with least mean square(LMS) algorithm. To confirm performance of the proposed methods, the correlation coefficient and the signal to noise ratio(SNR) before and after the signal processing were calculated. Finally, the results were compared each other.

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

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.21-25
• /
• 2009

Generally, fully implantable middle ear hearing device (F-IMEHD) is implanted under the skin nearby human temporal bone with all components including implantable microphone and vibration transducer. The microphone and transducer have different characteristic before and after implant. Fitting process is performed for this characteristic change of them and proper performance of hearing aids for each patient. Conventional hearing aids and partially implantable hearing aids, they have wired connector for fitting process. However in case of F-IMEHD, it is difficult this wired connection, because all components of F-IMEHD is implanted. In this paper, fitting software that can be apply wireless fitting hardware for F-IMEHD has been designed and implemented. It can find out proper fitting parameter reflecting characteristics of the microphone and transducer for patients who has difficulty in hearing.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.652-662
• /
• 2015

It is necessary to develop small, implantable bio-telemetry systems which can measure and transmit patients' bio-signals from internal body to external receiver. When measuring bio-signals, like electrical bio-signals, acoustic bio-signal measurement has also a big clinical usefulness. But, sound signal has larger frequency bandwidth than any other bio-signals. When considering these issues, a wireless telemetry system which has rapid data transmission rate proportional to wide frequency bandwidth is necessary to be developed. The bluetooth module is used to overcome the data rate limitation caused by the large frequency bandwidth. In this paper, a novel multimedia bluetooth biotelemetry system was developed which consists of transmitter module located in the body and receiver device located outside of the body. The transmitter consists of microphone, bluetooth, and wireless charging device. And the receiver consists of bluetooth and codec system. The sound inside the skin is captured by microphone and sent to receiver by bluetooth while charging. The wireless charging system constantly supplies the electric power to the system. To verify the performance of the developed system, an in vitro experiment has been performed. The results show that the proposed biotelemetry system has ability to acquire the sound signals under the skin.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.439-448
• /
• 2001

This paper considers the acoustical characteristics of the closing click sounds of the mechanical valves employed in an implantable biventricular assist device (BYAD) and their re1evance to the Physical states of the valved. Bj rk Shiley Convexo Concave tilting disk valve was chosen for the study and acoustic measurement was made for the BYAD operated in a mock circulatory system as well as implanted in an animal (sheep). In the BYAD operated in the mock circulatory system. three different states of the valve were examined, ie. normal. mechanically damaged. pseudo-thrombus attached. Microphone measurement for the BVAD implanted in the animal was carried out for five days at a regular time interval from one day after implantation. Characteristic spectrum of the sound from the valve was estimated using Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) in which the optimal order was determined according to Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) . It was observed that the mechanical damage of the valve resulted in changes of the structure of the acoustic spectrum. In contrast. the thrombus formed on the valve did not change much the basic structure of the spectrum but brought about altering the spectral Peak frequencies and energies. Maximum spectral Peak (MSP) with the greatest energy was seen at 2 kHz for the normal valve and it was shifted to 3 kHz for the calve attaching the Pseudo-thrombus. Unlike the normal valve, strong spectral Peak appeared around 7 kHz in the sound from the valve mechanically damaged. In the case of the BYAD implanted in the animal. as the thrombus grew, acoustic energy was reduced relatively more in the low frequency components (〈 2 kHz) and the frequencies of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd MSP were increased little. The thrombus formation would result in reduction in both the variability of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd MSP and the value of the BIC optimal order.