Tech

New earplug can protect hearing while preserving sound quality

Determine 1: The adjustable earplug, already accessible from Minuendo (on the left), can passively cut back sound by 9-25 dB. The brand new chip for the next-generation hybrid earplugs is in comparison with a coin on the proper. Credit: Norwegian University of Science and Know-how

Listening to loss is irreversible and the most typical work-related damage worldwide. Prevention is the one approach to deal with this situation. However who has not been irritated by how foam earplugs make a rock live performance sound muffled and bass-heavy? or struggled to listen to a colleague when sporting cumbersome ear protectors in a loud office?

Whether or not it is to enhance the music expertise or to listen to your colleagues say, it is easy to provide in to the temptation of lifting and even utterly eradicating your listening to safety in these conditions. This exposes us to harmful noise ranges and has made everlasting listening to loss a worldwide public well being situation.

Growing a expertise that helps stop this was the driving motivation behind the SINTEF and Minuendo collaborative undertaking, “Picovatt.” The end result? A piezoelectric microelectromechanical system (piezoMEMS) with quantity management and no sound distortion, developed at SINTEF MiNaLab, (a part of the NorFab infrastructure), enabling quantity management with out sound distortion. As a bonus, the chip additionally capabilities as each a microphone and speaker.

Passive and lively listening to safety

Right now, passive and lively listening to protectors exist. Foam earplugs and ear muffs talked about earlier are passive, that means they lack built-in electronics or superior performance. Energetic listening to safety makes use of built-in microphones, sign processors, and audio system to regulate and management sound ranges primarily based on the setting.

However these headphones might be cumbersome, uncomfortable, and produce an unnatural sound. Regardless of the provision of lively listening to safety, passive choices nonetheless dominate the market.

Our hybrid earplug combines the most effective of each worlds: it is small, adjusts the amount with out distorting the sound, and is way much less power-consuming than standard lively earplugs.

Rock live performance with quantity management

Minuendo, spun off from SINTEF in 2018, sells critically acclaimed listening to safety worldwide. Of their present model of the earplug, proven on the left in Determine 1, the sound quantity is adjusted by opening and shutting a small slit utilizing a tiny handbook lever. The sound passes by way of naturally, with a manually adjustable damping of 9 to 25 dB.

The brand new piezoMEMS chip, developed within the Picovatt undertaking, electronically opens and closes a number of slits by bending small “beam structures,” or tiny “lids” located on high of every slit.

Protects hearing while preserving sound quality
Determine 2: The micron-thin layers (on the left), fashioned into small beams, make it attainable to open and shut slits and thereby adaptively differ the attenuation within the earplug (on the proper). 40 dB attenuation at 0 V, no attenuation at 30 V. Credit: Norwegian University of Science and Know-how

This permits quantity management starting from practically 0 dB (open) to 40 dB (closed). The lively half, the actuator, consists of skinny silicon coated with micron-thin piezoelectric layers of lead zirconate titanate (PZT). PZT contracts in-plane when a voltage is utilized, “pulling” the floor and bending the beam upwards.

At 30 volts, the tip of the beam lifts about 100 micrometers, permitting sound to move with out damping. When the voltage drops, the slit closes.

By various the voltage, you thus have an earplug that permits you to stand on the entrance row of a rock live performance and regulate the amount to a secure and cozy stage, with sound high quality unchanged. No extra muffled, bass-heavy, distorted sound. Simply pure and clear rock n’ roll on the excellent secure quantity.

Attenuator, speaker, and microphone

The hybrid earplug does greater than volume management; it may well additionally play sounds or different audio indicators and work as a microphone. In lots of circumstances, monitoring the surface noise ranges is fascinating in order that the system can regulate its attenuation to the state of affairs. It’s, due to this fact, fairly handy that piezoelectric materials work each methods: small mechanical vibrations from sound waves generate electrical indicators that may be readily picked up.

Due to this fact, the identical chip capabilities as each a speaker and a microphone. This was additionally demonstrated within the Picovatt undertaking. Actually, it really works surprisingly nicely as a speaker and has very helpful microphone properties. This manner, the identical element can function a “three-in-one” answer.

Information about piezoMEMS and acoustic filtering:

  • Sensors convert bodily enter into {an electrical} sign. Actuators convert {an electrical} sign into mechanical movement. Each permit microprocessors to work together with their environment.
  • Piezoelectric supplies convert electrical energy into movement and vice versa, a course of referred to as electromechanical transduction.
  • Skinny piezoelectric layers can bend small buildings, equivalent to microbeams within the earplug, with lower than one microwatt of energy.
  • Piezoelectric microelectromechanical techniques, or piezoMEMS, are micron-sized piezoelectric buildings used as sensors and actuators.
  • The hybrid earplug is an instance of how piezoMEMS can miniaturize and improve acoustic “circuits” made up of membranes, tubes, or slits that type a filter.
  • PiezoMEMS might be built-in into massive silicon wafers, permitting for cost-effective mass manufacturing.

Smaller, cheaper, higher

Like most expertise as we speak, it is usually a want that hearing protection and headphones change into smaller, extra useful, and cheaper, with elevated battery life. Skinny-film piezoMEMS make this attainable.

As proven on the proper in Determine 1, the prototype is about one-ninth the dimensions of a coin. Despite the fact that it already works nicely in an earplug, future fashions may shrink 10 instances extra. The energy consumption of only a few hundred nanowatts can be even decrease, permitting for smaller batteries and longer-lasting earplugs. On the identical time, extra chips can match on every silicon wafer, lowering the value additional. All in all, chips which might be smaller, cheaper, and higher.

Quotation:
New earplug can defend listening to whereas preserving sound high quality (2024, October 31)
retrieved 31 October 2024
from https://techxplore.com/information/2024-10-earplug-quality.html

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