Introduction

What is hearing aid:First developments in digital processing of speech sound were done in 1960's in Bell Laboratories .In recent years, the use of digital components in the design of hearing aids (HA's) is fast becoming a standard rather than an exception. Various HAs on the market, that utilizes digital circuits, having proven to provide increased flexibility and efficiency in both fitting and hearing aid evaluation. Although the availability of digital signal processing (DSP) techniques that are applied to the incoming signal do not vary much in the commercially available units, it is evident that research in DSP is the most promising area in future hearing aid development. Already new generation of HA's brings higher levels of satisfaction from the end user-hearing impaired. Signal Processing can be viewed as any manipulation of a signal that alters its characteristics; whether extracting, enhancing or otherwise modifying said information. These changes are conducted in order to help the hearing aid wearer to better discriminate between speech and noise; essentially then to increase signal to noise ratio (S/N). To achieve these results the consumer has available to him/her two basic approaches: automatic/adaptive digitally controlled analogue systems, and digitally programmable HA's. It should be noted that however complex a HA may seem, generally five approaches to signal processing are in use: variable gain, equalization, compression, limiting and steady state noise reduction [1]. We implement the decimation filter using the canonic signed digit (CSD) representation [5].
Figure 1(hearing aids)

Importance [3]
Individual tuning or programmability - when converting sound into computer code, the computer chip inside the digital hearing aid can break the sound up into different bands across a broad range of frequencies (or pitch) from high to low. These bands can then be programmed separately to increase the volume of sounds in the ranges needed to more perfectly match an individuals hearing loss. This program can also be changed over the lifespan of the hearing aid as the wearers hearing loss changes or their listening needs change. Noise reduction - many digital hearing aids can reduce the amount of background noise you hear. While the computer chip in the digital hearing aid converts the sound into a computer code, it can analyze the sound to determine if it contains modulations such as speech or if it contains noise. If it is determines the sound to be noise, it reduces the volume of that sound in just the frequency band where the noise is found while preserving the overall sound quality of speech. Previously, hearing aids would have to reduce overall volume in an attempt to make the hearing aid more comfortable in noise. Directional microphones - another way digital hearing aids can help reduce background noise is through the use of multiple microphones that are digitally coordinated to reduce the amplification of sounds to the side and rear of the individual wearing the hearing the hearing aid. This allows for the sound in front to be more easily heard in relation to the sounds behind and to the sides of the hearing aid user when in situations where background noise is making it difficult to understand conversation. Some digital hearing

aids require the pushing of a button to change the directionality of the microphones while other digital hearing aids automatically change to the directional mode when it is sensed that the user is in an environment with high noise levels. Feedback cancellation - hearing aid wearers often experience uncomfortable feedback in a wide variety of everyday situations. Feedback is when amplified sound coming out of the hearing aid reaches the hearing aid microphone and is amplified again causing a high pitch whistle. This can happen when putting on a hat or hugging a loved one when something gets close to the ear and forces the amplified sound leaking out of the ear canal back into the hearing aid microphone. This can be especially bothersome with telephone use in some hearing aids. Digital feedback cancellation with the hearing aid constantly monitoring the sound returning to the microphone and using the presentation of an inverted signal to cancel the feedback when it is detected. This prevents the occurrence of feedback without reducing the volume of the hearing aid. Automatic volume control - most digital hearing aids come without a volume control. Comfortable listening levels are established when the hearing aid is programmed and the hearing aid then adjusts the hearing aid so that soft sounds are audible, speech level sounds are comfortable and loud sounds are loud but tolerable. This happens with the computer chip in the hearing aid processing thousands of sound per second and making decisions on how to amplify these sounds across all the individual frequency bands. This means that when a loud sound enters the hearing aid, only the volume for the frequency region of the noise is reduced and not the overall volume of the hearing aid. It is far more comfy than an analogue. It eliminates the sharp whistle or squawking common to analogue hearing aids. Plus, it has multiple bands and channels for every sound pitch. It also reduces feedback noise coming from the background. This feature gives a more pleasant experience to the user since there is better volume control and pitch tuning.[3]

1. Describe what hearing aids actually do [2] Every hearing aid has four basic parts: A microphone which grabs the sound An amplifier that turns up the volume of the sound A speaker that delivers the sound to you A battery which juices up all the power In order to hear you need the sound coming into your ear that is turned up loud enough so that you can recognize it. There needs to be enough energy to make all the parts work. 2. What are the three different types of hearing aids? [2] Regular analog Programmable analog Programmable digital 3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type? [2] An adjustable analog hearing aid is the least expensive and works well for people who will not be in noisy environments. You must turn the volume up and down manually.

Adjustable analog hearing aids are on the way out and manufacturers will be producing mainly digital hearing aids in the future. Programmable analog hearing aids can be adjusted for different settings, unlike the regular analog. This means the programmable analog can be turned up or down according to your situation by pushing a small control on the hearing aid. These will also be replaced by digital hearing aids in the future.

Decimation filters
Delta-sigma (; or sigma-delta, ) (decimation filter) modulation is a method for encoding high-resolution or analog signals into lower-resolution digital signals. The conversion is done using error feedback, where the difference between the two signals is measured and used to improve the conversion. The low-resolution signal typically changes more quickly than the highresolution signal and it can be filtered to recover the high-resolution signal with little or no loss of fidelity. This technique has found increasing use in modern electronic components such as analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs), frequency synthesizers, switched-mode power supplies and motor controllers. A very popular application of delta-sigma conversion is in audio applications where a digital audio signal, as from an MP3 player, is converted into the analog audio signal which will be amplified and output by speakers or headphones. Because most of the modulator is a digital circuit, it is cheap to construct. Since the output of this modulator typically has only two levels, the generation of the analog output signal is power efficient. Further, because the modulator's output signal changes much faster than the desired audio signal, it can be heavily filtered and the resulting analog signal has high enough fidelity for use in professional applications. Low cost, low power and high fidelity make delta-sigma modulators (decimation filter) very popular. [4]

Description
The analog to digital converter, ADC, generates a pulse stream in which the frequency of pulses in the stream is proportional to the analog voltage input, v, so that the frequency, where k is a constant for the particular implementation. A counter sums the number of pulses that occur in a predetermined period, P so that the sum, , is .

is chosen so that a digital display of the count, , is a display of v with a predetermined scaling factor. Because P may take any designed value it may be made large enough to give any desired resolution or accuracy. Each pulse of the pulse stream has a known, constant amplitude V and duration known integral but variable separating interval. , and thus has a

In a formal analysis an impulse such as integral

is treated as the Dirac (delta) function and

is specified by the step produced on integration. Here we indicate that step as The interval between pulses, p, is determined by a feedback loop arranged so that

. The action of the feedback loop is to monitor the integral of v and when that integral has incremented by , which is indicated by the integral waveform crossing a threshold, then subtracting from the integral of v so that the combined waveform sawtooths between the threshold and (threshold - ). At each step a pulse is added to the pulse stream. Between impulses the slope of the integral is proportional to

. Whence

It is the pulse stream which is transmitted for delta-sigma modulation but the pulses are counted to form sigma in the case of analogue to digital conversion.[4]

Project progress chart References

[1] Levitt Harry PhD, "Digital hearing instruments: A brief overview", Hearing Instruments, Vol.39,
No.4, 1988, 8-12. [2]http://www.agingparentsauthority.com/elderly-needs/hearing-aids-best-what-works [3]http://www.evergreenaudiology.com/digital_benefits.htm [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-sigma_modulation#Analog_to_digital_conversion [5]Design

and implementation of a decimation filter for hearing aid applications IEEE paper, issue date 8-10 April 2005, SoutheastCon, 2005. Proceedings. IEEE