ADVANCED TACTILE DISPLAY FOR THE DEAF PHASE II

说明：（根据申请人摘要改编） 这项工作的目标是开发一种改进的显示方法 为聋人提供触觉信息。 所处理的问题包括： 用于显示所需信息的频道、内容 （编码）显示的信号，作为次要问题，相对 两种不同处理方法的抗噪性。 具体 要检查的处理/显示类型是：1）补充共振峰 一种跟踪器，其中一个附加的宽带信号将被提供给用户 通过一个额外的特殊设计的换能器; 2）共振峰跟踪器 处理器，该处理器使用音调降低的驱动信号，而不是更高的驱动信号。 通常的单音编码; 3）声码器，再次使用音调降低 驱动信号，而不是更常见的单音编码;以及4）a 24-通道共振峰跟踪器使用类似于现在由 Tactaid VII（7通道可穿戴设备），但分辨率更高。 一个 另一项任务将是比较两种材料的抗噪性能， 共振峰跟踪器;一个使用零轴分析技术，而另一个 使用基于过滤器的分析技术。 如果这些研究的结果 显示承诺或任何这些新的方法，听力工程 将进行必要的相关商业开发， 技术，以提供更先进的触觉 帮助聋人。

DESCRIPTION: (ADAPTED FROM THE APPLICANT'S ABSTRACT) The long-term objective of this work is to develop an improved method of displaying tactile information for the deaf. The issues addressed are number of channels used for displaying the desired information, the content (ENCODING) of the displayed signal and, as a secondary issue, the relative noise immunity of two different processing approaches. The specific processing/display types to be examined are: 1) A supplemented formant tracker in which an additional wideband signal will be supplied to the user through an extra specially designed transducer; 2) A formant tracker processor which uses pitch lowered driving signals instead of the more usual single tone encoding; 3) A vocoder which, again, uses pitch lowered driving signals instead of the more usual single tone encoding; and 4) a 24-channel formant tracker using processing similar to that now used by the Tactaid VII (a 7-channel wearable device) but with better resolution. An additional task will be to compare the noise resistant properties of two formant trackers; one using zero-axis analysis techniques while the other uses filter-based analysis techniques. If the results of these studies show promise or any one of these new approaches, Audiological Engineering would undertake the commercial development of the necessary associated technologies in order to make available the more advanced kind of tactile aid for the deaf.