Abstract
In the preliminary research, a new partially implantable bone conduction hearing aid using giant magnetostrictive material (GMM) for transducer has been proposed. The hearing aid is implanted under the skin of a patient's temporal bone. The hearing aid consists of an external unit, i.e., a microphone, a sound processor and a transmitting coil, and of an internal unit i.e., a receiving coil and a transducer (bone vibrator). The internal unit and the external unit are completely separated, and sound signals are transmitted from the external unit to the internal unit by percutaneously using mutual induction. GMM is a metal material which changes its length according to change of magnetic field. However, the powers of the hearing aid at low frequencies are inadequate. In this paper, amplitude modulation (AM) was introduced to the signal transmission to improve the performance of the hearing aid. The excitation force of the hearing aid generated by AM wave was higher than that by sine wave particularly at low frequencies. This result suggests that efficiency of transducer can be more improved by AM using high-frequency carrier waves.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
