Hat-type hearing system using MEMS microphone array

For speech communications, it is useful to emphasize the sound coming from a certain direction. To give more freedom to sound directivity, we want to use a large-scale microphone array for hearing aids. However, it is difficult to mount a large-sale microphone array in a natural way. In this paper, we propose and develop a hat-type hearing system using micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) microphone array with high-speed single-bit signals. From the results of measurement of sound directivity, our system achieves a shape forward directivity. The results of experiment in an actual environment shows that the sound coming from the front direction is emphasized about 10 dB compared with the other directions.