Cochlear Implant Fitting System Acoustic Scene Synthesis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cochlear implant patients often experience sub-optimal sound quality and hearing performance in real-world environments due to the impracticality of testing and adjusting programming parameters in controlled clinic settings, leading to significant trial and error in optimizing fitting sessions.
Innovation Solution
A fitting system that maintains sound and environment libraries, generates audio signals representative of customized acoustic scenes by convolving sound waveforms with head-related impulse responses, allowing clinicians to simulate various environments and adjust cochlear implant settings more effectively.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If cochlear implant fitting is performed in controlled clinic settings with limited acoustic environments, then the fitting procedure can be completed efficiently in the clinic, but the patient experiences sub-optimal sound quality and hearing performance in real-world environments
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates virtual copies of real-world acoustic environments through synthesized acoustic scenes. These virtual environments replicate the acoustic characteristics of restaurants, classrooms, churches, and other listening conditions, allowing clinicians to test and optimize implant parameters without physically transporting patients to these locations. This copying approach enables comprehensive real-world testing while maintaining clinic-based efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary testing and optimization of cochlear implant parameters across multiple virtual environments before the patient leaves the clinic. By synthesizing and testing acoustic scenes in advance, the system prepares optimized programming parameters that account for diverse real-world conditions, eliminating the need for extensive trial-and-error adjustments after patient discharge.
2Measurement precision
If clinicians perform extensive trial and error adjustments of programming parameters in the clinic, then they can optimize parameters for various conditions, but the fitting session becomes time-consuming and impractical
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-synthesizes multiple acoustic scenes representing different real-world environments before the fitting session begins. These pre-prepared virtual environments allow clinicians to systematically test programming parameters across diverse conditions during a single clinic visit, achieving comprehensive optimization without time-consuming travel and extended trial-and-error adjustments.
Solution Approach 2:
The acoustic scene synthesis system serves multiple functions: it generates diverse testing environments, simulates real-world acoustic conditions, enables parameter optimization across conditions, and provides a standardized testing platform. This multi-functionality consolidates what would otherwise require multiple separate procedures and physical locations into a single integrated system.
3Measurement precision
If patients are tested in actual real-world environments like restaurants and classrooms, then accurate hearing performance data can be obtained, but it is impractical for clinics to transport and test patients in these locations
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of transporting patients to real-world locations, the system creates accurate virtual copies of these environments through synthesized acoustic scenes. These virtual reproductions capture the essential acoustic characteristics of restaurants, classrooms, churches, and other listening conditions, providing measurement accuracy comparable to real-world testing while eliminating the operational complexities of patient transport and on-site testing.
Solution Approach 2:
The acoustic scene synthesis system acts as an intermediary between the clinic environment and real-world listening conditions. It translates physical acoustic environments into virtual representations that can be delivered through the cochlear implant system, bridging the gap between controlled clinic settings and complex real-world scenarios without requiring physical patient relocation.
Data Source
AI summary
An exemplary system includes 1) a fitting facility configured to maintain data representative of a library of one or more sounds and data representative of a library of one or more environments, and 2) a detection facility configured to detect a selection by a user of a sound included in the library of one or more sounds an environment included in the library of one or more environments. The fitting facility is further configured to generate, based on the selected sound and the selected environment, an audio signal representative of an acoustic scene and use the audio signal to fit a cochlear implant system to a patient. Corresponding systems and methods are also disclosed.