An Efficient Reconfigurable FRM Filterbank for Digital Hearing Aid

Abstract

Loss of hearing is the third most common disability in the world population and dramatically disturbs the usual way of living life. A hearing aid can significantly help the hearing-impaired lead an everyday life. However, lack of flexibility and suitability of hearing aid as per impaired's varying hearing profile is the major hindrance for hearing aid users. Lack of proper auditory compensation with more delay and power requirement are other secondary challenges refraining the patients from using hearing aids. To address these burning issues, this paper elucidates the system construct of a reconfigurable filterbank built with Frequency Response Masking (FRM) method for hearing aid. This Reconfigurable filter bank (RFB) provides three sub-band distribution schemes making the device more flexible and tailor-made as per the user's hearing requirement. The proposed filter bank design is further optimized with the Swarm-Intelligence-based AB algorithm. Merits of enhanced Reconfigurable FRM filter bank are improved matching error by more than 56% for patients with mild to moderate hearing loss and improvement ranging between 11 to 22% for other hearing loss ranges. Results also show delay improvement significantly above 60% for all types of hearing Losses compared to existing filter design considered for review. Thus, the enhanced reconfigurable FRM filter bank proposed in the paper demonstrates the effectiveness of its use in hearing aid applications and is a viable solution for performance improvement of digital hearing aid.