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Listeners with hearing problems find noisy rooms, such as many classrooms, burdensome because speech is hard to understand in rooms with multiple interfering sound sources.  Existing methods of extracting or suppressing individual sounds generally require that those sounds be motionless—that is, that the sound source remains stationary. We are developing a hearing aid-compatible system capable of extracting or suppressing the sound of moving sources.

This system would use multiple microphones in a classroom or other space where people gather.  It would isolate individual sound sources such as speech, removing unwanted noise and separating sounds of interest even in situations in which sound sources moved in arbitrary ways.  Then it would deliver enhanced speech or other signals to the ears of multiple listeners in the room, personalized to each listener, via their cellphones and preferred listening devices.

Click here for an example. 

Hearing loss is one of the most prevalent occupation-related injuries. We will develop an advanced audio-processing system for high-noise workplace environments to deliver enhanced situational sounds of the worker’s environment by removing the hazardously loud noises and presenting via common wifi-enabled hearing protection. This will enable workers to hear both voices and important sounds such as alarms and backing forklifts, while still protecting their hearing.

Click here for an example. 

STAR announces the award of a National Institutes of Health small-business grant, “Hear What I Want: An Acoustically Smart Personalized Common Room”.  This will improve hearing healthcare by developing a hearing aid-compatible system that will identify the location and sounds of interfering acoustic sources and deliver an enhanced rendition of speech sounds from which interfering sources have been “scrubbed”.

Listeners with hearing deficits find noisy rooms, such as many classrooms and the common areas in assisted-living centers, burdensome because speech is hard to understand in rooms with multiple interfering sound sources.

This product will use multiple microphones permanently placed in a classroom or other complex space to isolate individual sound sources, identify and remove echoes, and upon request deliver personalized enhanced speech signals, from which masking sounds had been removed, to the ears of multiple listeners in the room via their cellphones and preferred listening devices.

Click here for an example. 

STAR is excited to announce the award of a small-business grant, “Scrubbing Complex Sound Sources for Factory Situational Awareness”, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Hearing loss is one of the most prevalent occupation-related injuries. With advanced audio-processing systems for high-noise workplace environments, we aim to deliver enhanced situational sounds of the worker’s environment by removing the hazardously loud noises and presenting via common wifi-enabled hearing protection. This will enable workers to hear both voices and important sounds, such as alarms and backing forklifts, while still protecting their hearing.

Click here for an example.

Members of Audio by Design won the prestigious Venture Forum 5 Minute Pitch event. Using algorithms developed by STAR Analytical Services, Audio by Design presented DTangle, which provides hearing protection while retaining all-important situational awareness. To hear a demonstration of this software, note the samples below as they demonstrate the dynamic scrubbing process.

Original Audio Sample:

Single Pass Scrubbing:

Best Output Sample: