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SonoLoop Compact Speaker Array for Clinical Testing

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Defense Health Agency
Contract: W81XWH18C0341
Agency Tracking Number: H181-007-0067
Amount: $149,991.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: DHA18-007
Solicitation Number: 2018.1
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2018
Award Year: 2018
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2018-06-11
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2019-01-10
Small Business Information
85 N Whitney
Amherst, MA 01002
United States
DUNS: 078808915
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Michael White
 (303) 317-6566
 mike@ftllabscorp.com
Business Contact
 Michael White
Phone: (303) 317-6566
Email: mike@ftllabscorp.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

While clinical audiometry is most often conducted with headphones, there are many practical cases where it is desirable to measure the free-space hearing performance of both normal-hearing listeners and listeners wearing hearing aids, hearing protection devices, or implantable hearing prosthetics, both for evaluating fitness for duty and for evaluating outcomes of clinical interventions. Traditional, two-source sound-field audiometry has very little standardization in terms of where speakers are placed. Consequently, hearing measures conducted with these sound field speakers may not be consistent across different audiological test booths. Conversely, large speaker-arrays cannot easily be deployed into clinical settings, making the development of standardized tests using them impractical. FTL's SonoLoop can be field-calibrated for quantitative results in small spaces. It applies emerging speaker materials, audio chipsets, and room-correction algorithms to ensure repeatability in audiology tests, and provides a standardized method for conducting audiological sound-field testing that is compact, affordable, and reliable enough to allow direct comparisons of data across multiple facilities. SonoLoop uses Digital Signal Processing (DSP), head tracking, and a novel, portable speaker design to accommodate single and multisource sound localization including front-back confusions, separation and perception of multi-talker speech, and spatial hearing from masking for speech perception in noise. Performance of

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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