CHENNAI:
Hearing-impaired people may no longer wear the conventional hearing aids that
proclaims their disability. Instead, they can just wear a stylish cap, which
two students from a private university in Chennai have designed.
The students have
named their invention ‘AaWAAZ’ (meaning sound in Hindi) - a specially-designed
cap which amplifies sound inside the skull enabling even people with permanent
hearing loss right from their birth to hear sounds around them.
Speaking to press, Aditya Sripada, a student from SRM University Chennai campus, said,
“At present, people with deafness undergo an invasive surgery where an
electrode is introduced through an artificial hole cut behind the ear. Despite
low efficiency, the risk element associated with these bone- anchored hearing
aids is high as the person might lose residual hearing ability post- surgery
and the foreign body (electrode) results in persistent pain or meningitis
(inflammation of brain membranes) or skin irritation.”
“But AaWaaz, working on non-invasive bone conduction principle
uses an microphone-vibrator setup enabling hearing-impaired to hear sounds in
their surroundings inside their skulls. This cap has a microphone which can
pick up and convert sound waves into electric signals. This signal is amplified
and fed into a vibrator (bone conduction motor) which conducts the sound to the
inner ear through the cranial bones”, he said on the sidelines of displaying
the project at the Indian Institute of Technology’s annual technical festival,
Shaastra’16.
The entire set-up
is placed underneath a sponge layer within the cap thereby helping the
hearing-impaired conceal their disability. The microphone cable can also be
connected to the headphone slot of mobiles helping the hearing-impaired make
calls and listen to music just like ordinary people.
“This will also be
of help to the visually- challenged. During our study, we found out that
despite heaving a Google map installed in their mobiles for getting directions,
many don’t prefer using it as they fear colliding against anything in their
way, particularly with their headphones connected. Our project eliminates this
problem by directly amplifying sound,” Abhinav Gandhi, another student of the
project, said.
The cap costs
between `200 and `300. It can also be attached to other wearables like
sunglasses which has physical contact with the skull. “Since air as an
communication medium is eliminated in this process, this can be used for
underwater communication (while deep-sea swimming, scuba diving) and defence
purposes,”, Abhinav added.
The project was
secured the first place in the ‘Makers Summit’ conducted as a part of
Shasstra’16 at IIT-Madras on Tuesday.
