Simulation of Soundwave Propagation in Temporal Bone for the Optimal Design of the Hearing Aid using Bone-Conducted Ultrasound

新型骨导超声波助听器已开发用于听力受损的人。在这项研究中，针对该装置的优化设计，超声在介质中的微结构的传播进行精确的模拟，作为一个结果，与测量数据的良好协议被确认。本研究建立的世界上第一个三维人体声学模型有望在医学工程和临床领域发挥重要作用。此外，还测量了助听器实际使用所需的一些数据，包括唇读阅读条件下助听器的可懂度。

New hearing aid system using bone-conducted ultrasound has been developed for hearing-impaired people. In this study, targeting on the optimal design of the device, precise simulation of ultrasound propagation in medium with microstructure was performed ; as a result, good agreement with measured data was confirmed. The world's first 3-D acoustic model of whole human body created in this study is expected to play important roles in medical engineering and clinical field. Moreover, some required data for practical usage of hearing aid were measured, including the intelligibility of the device under the condition with lip reading.