Steerable Directional Listening for Individuals with Unilateral Hearing Loss

Abstract

A novel hearing aid design which incorporates 3 separate phased arrays with a digital signal processor running an adaptive beamforming algorithm, Generalized Sidelobe Canceller (GSC), providing the user with the capability of effectively focusing their listening to a certain source while suppressing any masking interference sources. The proposed phased array achieved an array directivity of 7.93dB with a half power bandwidth of 35.20º. The GSC and the phased array designed, when simulated, was able to achieve a SINR improvement of 9.72dB under strong noise levels and a 2.55dB SINR improvement under low level noise which were located spatially close to the desired source.