Neumorphic acoustic sensor technology for high-performance hearing aids of tomorrow (NeuroSensEar)

More than 11% of people in the EU are affected by hearing loss, but only 41% use a hearing aid. The reasons for this are problems in understanding speech and in adapting the devices to the patient. The project goal is therefore to improve the acceptance of and provision of hearing aids by significantly increasing their performance. The adaptation to the patient and different hearing situations is to be greatly facilitated and automated. To this end, principles of biological information processing will be integrated into hearing aid technology and auditory perception will be investigated for better hearing comprehension. Persons with hearing impairment should thus regain their hearing perception to a large extent. Bio-inspired sensory technology and speech processing are mutually linked for this purpose. The bio-inspired system, i.e. neuromorphic system, will consist of MEMS-based sensor technology and artificial neural networks. The interdisciplinary project team is concerned with sensor development, bio-inspired control and adaptation of the sensor technology, speech processing, situation recognition for sensor control as well as lifelong learning for it and its use in a new hearing aid technology.