• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.309-317
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• 2005

It is expected that fully-implantable middle-ear hearing devices (FIMEHDs) will soon be available with the advantages of complete concealment, easy surgical implantation, and low power operation to resolve the problems of semi-implantable middle-ear hearing devices (SIMEHDs) such as discomfort of wearing an external device and replacement of battery. Over the last 3 years, a Korean research team at Kyungpook National University has developed an FIMEHD called ACRHS-1 based on a differential floating mass transducer (DFMT). The main research focus was functional improvement, the establishment of easy surgical procedures for implantation, miniaturization, and a low-power operation. Accordingly, this paper reviews the overall system architecture, functions, and experimental results for ACRHS-1 and its related accessories, including a wireless battery charger and remote controller.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.165-173
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• 2007

A differential floating mass transducer has been developed in Korea for fully implantable middle ear hearing devices (F-IMEHDs). In particular, the performance of a differential floating mass transducer (DFMT) is very important among the parts of the F-IMEHDs because the mechanical vibration generated by DFMT is delivered to the inner ear directly. In this paper, the electrical model is proposed to analyze the DFMT vibration characteristic using the mechanical model of the DFMT. The electrical model enables the simple analysis of DFMT vibration characteristics using a computer program. The proposed electrical model is simulated through PSpice as changing the values of passive elements in the electrical model. To verify the proposed model, the DFMT has been implemented on the basis of the simulated results and the experiment for vibration measurement has been carried out. Through the comparison, it is verified that the proposed model is useful to analyze the vibration characteristics of the DFMT.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.162-168
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• 2009

Implantable middle ear hearing devices (IMEHDs) have been widely studied as an alternative hearing aids to solve the problems of conventional hearing aids. Vibration transducer of middle ear hearing aids is a key component because vibration characteristics of transducer is directly involved performance of hearing aids. So, the study about middle ear hearing aids concentrate on the transducers. A floating mass type transducer is most efficient. In this paper, we suggest a lumped mechanical model of electromagnetic floating mass transducer implanted on human middle ear. The proposed model enables analysis of the vibration characteristics of a floating mass transducer and prediction of the variation after implant on ossicle that offers a simple and easy to analyze. The parameters was drawn based on the components and the structures of transducer. The Lumped mechanical model was converted by the electrical-mechanical equivalent model, and simulated using PSpice. So, we investigated vibration characteristics of transducer influenced it's components. And we predict vibration characteristics of stapes footplate due to implanted transducer's vibration using combining model of transducer and human ear. To prove the feasibility of the suggested model, we fabricated a differential floating mass transducer (DFMT) as one of floating mass transducers and performed experiments using the human temporal bones.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.183-187
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• 2018

In this paper, we investigated the efficiency according to the output transmission method of the round window driving type AMEIs (active middle ear implants) through the cadaveric experiment. For the experiment, we fabricated DRT (direct rod transducer) and FMT (floating mass transducer) type vibrational transducers based on our previous studies and conducted their output characteristics were measured. TCBT (tri-coil bellows transducer) and DFMT (differential floating mass transducer) were implemented with the same driving force and electrical characteristics as one of DRT and FMT, respectively. In the experiment using three human temporal bone, normal stapes vibration was measured with 1 Pa in front of tympanic membrane, and then was compared with each output of transducers. From the comparison, the DRT type vibration transducer was superior in overall energy transfer efficiency, especially in the low frequency range. There was no difference in implantation difficulty between the two transducers. The results of this study suggest that the DRT type vibrational transducer is more efficient and needs further study to overcome the low frequency degradation in round window approaching with FMT.

• 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.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.286-293
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• 2009

The implantable middle ear hearing devices(IMEHDs) have been developed to overcome the conventional hearing aid's problem(ringing effect caused by the acoustic feedback, cosmetic problem, etc.). In the IMEHDs, the vibrating transducer is a key component because its vibration enables to hear for hearing impaired people. The vibrating transducer is implanted on ossicular chain by surgical operation. The coupling status between implanted transducer and ossicular chain has an effect on delivering vibrating force from transducer to stapes. Noninvasive method is required to investigate the output characteristics of IMEHDs after implementation. Recently, emitted sound pressure measuring method of tympanic membrane is proposed to investigate the output characteristics of IMEHDs. However, the relationship between displacement of stapes and sound pressure by tympanic membrane was not cleared. In this paper, displacement of stapes and sound pressure by tympanic membrane were measured using the differential floating mass transducer(DFMT) that implanted on the ossicular chain of the human temporal bone and physical ear model. Through the experiments results, the relationship between displacement of stapes and sound pressure by tympanic membrane was investigated.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.449-455
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• 2010

Implantable middle ear hearing devices(IMEHDs) have being actively studied to overcome the problems of conventional hearing aids. Vibration transducer, an output devices of IMEHDs, is attached on the ossicular chain and transmits mechanical vibration to cochlea. This approach allows us to hear more clear sound because mechanical vibration is effective to transfer high frequency acoustics, but occurs some problems such as fatigue accumulation to ossicular chian and reduction of vibration displacement caused by mass loading effect. Recently, many studies for the round window stimulation are announced, because it does not cause such problems. It have been studied by older transducers designed for attaching on ossicular chain. In this paper, we proposed a new electromagnetic transducer which consists of two magnets, three coils and a vibration membrane. The magnet assembly, magnet coupled in opposite direction, were placed in the center of three coils, and the optimum length of each coil generating maximum vibrational force was calculated by finite element analysis(FEA). The transducer was implemented as the calculated length of each coil, and measured vibration displacement. From the results, it is verified the vibration displacement can be improved by optimizing the length of coils.