Hearing aids APP design based on deep learning technology

Hearing loss is a common health issue in an aging society. When the seniors are suffering from hearing losses, it will affect their quality of life drastically. According to the World Health Organization in 2018, the population with hearing loss has reached 466 million and it is estimated that the number of hearing-impaired population will reach 900 million by 2050. Therefore, it is stated clearly that the hearing loss study deserves more attention and effort. For a hearing loss individual, the hearing aid is the most common assistive device to help users to improve the audibility capability. The previous studies indicated that the hearing aids can provide suitable gain in the quiet environment; however, there is still room for improvement in the environment with noise. Due to this issue, this study proposed a real-time speech enhancement system for hearing loss individual improve listening benefits in noisy conditions, based on deep neural network (DNN) technology. More specifically, we embedded the DNN-based SE approach in a smartphone to achieve real-time speech enhancement processing. The preliminary results showed that the proposed system provides benefits for users under noisy listening conditions.