• 대한전기학회논문지:전기물성ㆍ응용부문C
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• 제49권10호
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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 $2{\times}2{\times}2.5\;mm^3$.

• 재활복지공학회논문지
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• 제3권1호
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• pp.21-25
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• 2009

일반적으로 완전 이식형 인공중이는 이식형 마이크로폰과 진동 트랜스듀서를 포함한 모든 구성 요소가 측두골 부근 피부 아래에 이식되는 보청기이다. 마이크로폰과 트랜스듀서의 경우 이식 전과 후의 동작 주파수 특성 등이 달라진다. 이러한 특성변화와 이식 대상자의 청력특성에 알맞은 보청기 동작을 수행하기 위해 적합과정을 수행하게 된다. 일반 공기전도형 보청기나 부분 이식형 보청기의 경우 적합을 위한 전선 연결부가 존재하나 완전이식형의 경우에는 몸속에 모두 이식됨으로 이러한 전선의 연결이 어려우며 이에 따라 기존 보청기의 적합 프로그램을 적용하는 하드웨어를 이용한 적합이 어렵다. 본 논문에서는 완전 이식형 인공중이를 위한 무선 적합 하드웨어에 적용 가능한 적합 소프트웨어를 설계 및 구현하였다. 구현한 적합 소프트웨어는 마이크로폰과 트랜스듀서의 특성과 난청자의 청력도를 반영하여 적절한 청력 보상치를 산출할 수 있다.

• 한국멀티미디어학회논문지
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• 제19권2호
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• pp.189-199
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• 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.

• 센서학회지
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• 제19권5호
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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.

• 대한의용생체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한의용생체공학회 1996년도 춘계학술대회
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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.

• 전자공학회논문지SC
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• 제41권5호
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• pp.49-56
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• 2004

완전 이식형 인공중이 시스템을 위한 음성 신호처리 및 제어 모듈을 소형 마이크로컨트롤러를 사용하여 저전력형으로 설계 하였다 설계된 모듈은 입력되는 음성신호를 난청자의 역치에 맞추어 이득을 조정하는 등의 신호처리를 수행함과 동시에 체내 이식부의 제어를 수행하게 된다. 설계된 마이크로컨트롤러는 전원이 켜지면 사용자의 청력 손실에 맞추어서 주파수별로 차등 되는 이득을 주도록 실시간으로 음성신호를 처리하게 된다. 그러나 체외에서 제어신호가 입력될 경우 수신된 제어 신호에 의해 마이크로컨트롤러는 인터럽트 서브루틴을 수행하여 전원 제어, 볼륨 조절과 같은 제어 명령을 수행한 후 다시 음성 신호를 처리하도록 하였다. 설계된 모듈을 구현한 후 구현된 시스템의 동작을 실험을 통하여 확인하였다.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제28권4호
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• pp.539-548
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• 2007

In the paper, a wireless charger with the function of auto-shutdown for fully implantale middle ear hearing devices (F-IMEHD) has been designed. The wireless charger can communicate with an implant module to be turned off automatically shutdown after an internal rechargeable battery has been fully-charged by electromagnetic coupling using two coils. For the communication with an implant module, the wireless charger uses the load shift keying (LSK) method. But, the variation of the mutual inductance due to the different distance between two coils can cause the communication error in receiving the fully-charged signal from an implant module. To solve the problem, the implemented wireless charger has a variable reference generator for LSK communication. The wireless charger generates proper level of the reference voltage for a comparator using an ADC (analog-to-digital converter) and a DAC (digital-to-analog converter). Through the result of experiment, it has been confirmed that the presented wireless charger can detect signals from implantable module. And wireless charger can stop generating electromagnetic flux after an implanted battery has been fully charged in spite of variable coil distance according to different skin thickness.

• 센서학회지
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.78-84
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• 2005

A contactless recharging device for totally implantable middle ear systems has been designed as a pillow type that the user can recharge the implanted battery with taking a rest. The proposed device uses the electromagnetic coupling between the transmitting coil and the receiving coil. To supply sufficient power for the implanted circuits, each coil uses LC resonance and the implanted device uses voltage doubler. A power MOSFET is used for switching the DC voltage of LC parallel circuit and the switching frequency demands on a programmable frequency generator which is controlled by microcontroller. In order to improve the electromagnetic coupling efficiency at specific positions of coil which may vary with the displacement of head, the optimal location of receiving coil was studied, and the 5 transmitting coils in a pillow for recharging the implant module was designed. From such a recharging experiment, it was found that the proposed device could provide the sufficient operating voltage within the distance of 4 cm between pillow and the implanted device.

• 센서학회지
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.223-230
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• 2006

An FIR filter for digital voice signal processing has been designed and implemented using a microcontroller in implantable middle ear hearing devices (IMEHDs). The designed digital voice signal processing filter which has fast and accurate filtering operation and controllable filter characteristics has been implemented using a hardware multiplier and a direct memory access (DMA) in the low power microcontroller, MSP430F169. It has been confirmed that each of the implemented 6-orders Remez FIR filters with 1 channel and 2 channels can be applied to the voice signal processing module of IMEHDs based on the evaluation results of the filtering performance experiment.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제23권3호
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• pp.217-225
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• 2002

이식형 인공중이는 일반적인 공기전도형 보청기가 가지는 난점인 고이득에서의 왜곡과 음향 피이드백에 의한 링잉 현상을 해결할 수 있는 동시에 음질과 주파수 특성 및 청음명료도가 우수하다 본 논문에서는 마이크로머시닝 기술을 이용하여 차동 전자 트랜스듀서를 제작한 후 이를 사용하여 이식형 인공중이 시스템을 구현하였다. 제작된 시스템을 이용하여 무부하 진동실험. 사체를 이용한 부하진동실험 및 살아있는 개를 이용하여 동물이식실험을 실시함으로써 이의 성능을 확인하였다. 무부하 진동실험을 통하여 제작된 트랜스듀서는 입력되는 소리신호와 같은 형태의 진동을 일으킴을 확인하였고, 사체의 이소골에 트랜스듀서를 이식하고 부하실험을 실시함으로써 트랜스듀서의 이소골 구동능력과 진동특성을 조사하였다. 그리고 개를 이용하여 동물이식실험을 실시한 후 뇌간 유발 반응검사를 실시함으로써 생체 내에서의 이식형 인공중이의 동작을 확인하였다. 이를 통하여 제작된 차동 전자 트랜스듀서를 이용한 이식형 인공중이 시스템의 성능을 검증하였고 난청자에게 적용할 경우에도 잘 동작할 수 있음을 증명함으로써 임상실험을 실시할 수 있는 근거를 마련하였다.