Head Simulator with Acoustic Measurement Capabilities********

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Hearing loss ranks as the third most prevalent chronic disability in Canada, with approximately 10% of Canadians affected by some form of hearing loss. Accurate assessment of hearing loss and appropriate rehabilitation are crucial for ensuring good quality of life for hearing impaired listeners. Audiologists are primary hearing health care providers and imbuing clinical skills for hearing assessment and assistive hearing device fitting in Audiology students is paramount.****AHead Simulations is a medical technology startup aimed to increase training opportunities within Audiology to improve clinical outcomes. Their first product, the Canadian Audiology simulator for Research and Learning (CARL), is a custom 3D printed head with silicone ears and a camera module mounted inside the head to provide real-time feedback of any object's positioning inside the ear canal. With this realistic head simulator, trainees have the ability to practice their in-ear clinical procedures on a simulated patient before practicing on other students, or on patients in a clinic.****This project aims to provide acoustic signal acquisition, analysis, and interpretation capabilities to the head simulator from AHead Simulations. Custom bilateral microphone assembly with built-in signal conditioning and acoustic data acquisition will be constructed and embedded into the head simulator. Realtime acoustic signal detection and spectrum analysis will be developed to enable verification of bilateral hearing aids. A patient response simulator for pure tone audiometry will be created and validated. The enhanced CARL will increase market penetration by AHead Simulations and indirectly help hearing impaired Canadians through training next generation Audiologists of high clinical calibre.**