ReBiHear: Restoring Binaural Hearing through Individualized Wireless Sound Coding Strategies for Cochlear Implant Users

人工耳蜗（CI）是一种通过手术植入内耳的小型电子设备，可以通过电刺激听神经来恢复重度失聪患者的听觉。虽然现在安静环境中的语音清晰度，甚至电话语音对大多数CI用户来说都不是主要问题，但嘈杂环境中的语音清晰度仍然是一个主要挑战。CI用户需要更高的信噪比（SNRs）才能达到与正常听力听众相同的语音清晰度。出于这个原因，双耳语音增强技术已经出现，通过在组合信号处理中利用左耳和右耳上的麦克风捕获的信息来提高嘈杂声学条件下的信噪比。然而，音频信号从一个点到另一个点的传输需要低延迟、低比特率和非常高的质量，这样双耳算法才能提高噪声中的语音性能。本项目建立在先前对双耳信号处理的电刺激模式编码研究的基础上。本研究将探讨双耳融合的基本机制，以解释双侧CI （BiCI）用户双耳表现的可变性，并提出一种新的双耳声音编码策略（i-BiNoM），该策略采用一种新的源编码算法。i-BiNoM的设计将考虑个人双耳集成能力，并将包括双耳语音增强方法，包括低频的理想频带选择，以提高bici的语音清晰度。此外，这种双耳声音编码策略将在两个CIs之间无线交换信息，这些信息将通过混合音频-电编解码器进行编码，该编解码器将压缩由CIs的麦克风捕获的幅度和相位信息。计划中的项目是汉诺威医科大学（MHH）耳鼻喉科听觉修复小组与莱布尼茨Universität汉诺威大学<s:1>信息技术研究所（TNT）合作的延续。在项目过程中，两个项目伙伴将在各自的研究领域取得重大进展，特别是用于音频应用的数据减少（TNT）和用于CIs的双耳信号增强（MHH）。此外，这次合作是一个很好的机会，工程系和医学院之间的知识交流。这样，工程方法和医学专业知识可以相结合，以确保项目的成功。

A cochlear implant (CI) is a small electronic device that is surgically implanted in the inner ear and can restore the sense of hearing of a profoundly deaf person by electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve. Although nowadays speech intelligibility in quiet environments and even speech over the telephone represents no major problem formost CI users, speech intelligibility in noisy environments is still a major challenge. CI users need significantly higher Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNRs) to achieve the same speech intelligibility as normal hearing listeners. For this reason, binaural speech enhancementtechniques have emerged to improve the SNR in noisy acoustic conditions by making use of the information captured by the microphones on both the left and the right ear in a combined signal processing. However, the transmission of the audio signals from oneear to the other needs to be done with low latency, low bit rate and very high quality such that the binaural algorithms can improve speech performance in noise. This project builds on the results of previous research on coding of electrical stimulation patterns for binaural signal processing. It will investigate the fundamental mechanisms of binaural fusion to explain the variability in binaural performance of bilateral CI (BiCI) users and proposes a new binaural sound coding strategy (i-BiNoM) with a new source coding algorithm. i-BiNoM will be designed considering individual binaural integration capabilities and will include binaural speech enhancement methods including ideal band selection for low frequencies to improve speech intelligibility in BiCIs. Moreover, this binaural sound coding strategy will interchange information between the two CIs wirelessly which will be coded by means of a hybrid Audio-Electrocodec that will compress both magnitude and phase information captured by the microphones of the CIs. The planned project is a continuation of the collaboration between the Auditory Prosthetic Group of the Department of Otolaryngology that is part of Medical University Hannover (MHH) and the Institut für Informationsverarbeitung (TNT) of Leibniz Universität Hannover. In the course of the project both project partners will make significant progress in their field of research in particular data reduction for audioapplications (TNT) and binaural signal enhancement for CIs (MHH). In addition, this cooperation is a great opportunity to exchange knowledge between an engineering department and a medical school. Doing so, engineering methods and medical expertise can be combined to ensure the success of the project.