2008 RI Research Alliance Grant Program Awardees
Next-Generation Hearing Aids
More than 30 million people in the United States suffer from some kind of hearing loss, yet the hearing aid industry has failed to produce devices tailored to meet the needs of this
Some hearing aid users encounter feedback and echoes, which make excursions such as movie and theater-going frustrating, sometimes impossible, while others struggle with comfort and fit.
Bionica Corporation, located in Providence, Rhode Island, began developing a small and comfortable hearing aid to deliver vastly improved sound quality to patients suffering from hearing loss. A grant from the Rhode Island Research Alliance, formed by the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC), enabled Bionica to further develop the underlying technology that will help the company revolutionize how people around the world cope with hearing loss.
The emergence of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) two decades ago created hope for a new generation of hearing aids. By essentially “reshaping” sounds, it allowed users to better manage nuisances like feedback and echoes, and to adjust settings to different environments. Even more importantly, DSP enables hearing aid developers to better tailor new devices to different types of hearing loss and to the needs of individual users.
One of the biggest constraints for hearing aid developers however, has been how to fit new technologies like DSP into a small-enough package — mainly because they require more power than traditional devices.
With STAC support, Bionica began exploring how to use existing technologies to process and transmit sounds in new and better ways.
Surprisingly, there is a limited amount of research and development in the hearing aid industry, says Bionica’s Chief Technology Officer Kipp Bradford. The hearing aid industry is small due to a limited pool of specialized expertise and relatively small market. “Support from STAC is helping us get more brains thinking about these issues,” says Bradford.
In Bradford’s opinion, the hearing aid industry has not benefited as much as it might from developments in other sectors, especially telecommunications and the military. There is also a wealth of academic expertise in the region that Bionica and other developers have yet to tap.
“Anytime you develop an innovation, it can be applied elsewhere,” says Bradford. “Cross pollination happens in both directions.”
