Octav Chipara, along with Yu-Hsiang Wu in Communication Sciences and Disorders and colleagues at Gallaudet University, have been awarded a grant from the NIDILRR (National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research). The five-year project is entitled “Optimizing the Wireless Ecosystem for Hearing Aids,” under the umbrella center grant called “Deaf/Hard of Hearing Technology Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center,” which is led Christian Vogler at the Gallaudet University.

This project is exploring new ways to integrate hearing aids into an interconnected wireless ecosystem. A programming framework and toolkit are being created to simplify the development of apps that integrate hearing aids with Internet of Things devices and cloud-based services. The cloud has virtually unlimited processing power and will allow novel signal processing techniques that a hearing device would never be able to run. Consumers may experience significantly improved hearing in challenging listening situations through these apps.