Open-air Hearing Aids

By Chung-Ying Ho (何宗穎)

For a hearing impaired person, wearing a hearing aid to amplify the received sound is the most common and effective treatment. Conventional close-air hearing aids block ear canal completely, making users uncomfortable when wearing. Advanced open-air hearing aids a thin tube inside the ear canal to allow air flowing through, therefore, is more comfortable. However, unblocked ear canal leads to the noise leakage problem. Active noise control (ANC) technique is developed to solve this problem and improve the quality of the hearing aids.