The Centre for Applied Hearing Research (CAHR) is situated within the Hearing Systems group in DTU Elekto. Created in 2003 through a formal consortium agreement between the three Danish hearing-aid companies and DTU, CAHR’s mission is to investigate the signal processing principles and coding strategies in the human auditory system with an emphasis on the perceptual consequences of hearing impairment and aided hearing impairment in complex acoustic environments. Previous work at CAHR has included the development of new Danish speech perception tests as well as the design and development of new sound recording and reproduction techniques.
In particular, CAHR aims to connect the fundamental research conducted at the Centre for Hearing and Speech Science (CHeSS) with the clinical research conducted at the hospitals and the needs of industry. Thus, CAHR seeks to apply findings from research conducted at DTU and elsewhere in a way that is relevant to society.
The Danish hearing-aid companies, Oticon, GN Hearing, and Widex, continue to support the centre and have signed a new consortium agreement for the period of 2017-2020. The three main research goals are as follows:
- Apply advanced computational models of auditory perception and speech processing in the normal and impaired auditory system for optimized model based fitting of hearing aids.
- Incorporate acoustic scene analysis in hearing aids (e.g., applying new techniques to hearing aids such as incorporating head movements, etc.)
- Develop tests using virtual sound environments that are relevant to the everyday experiences of hearing impaired listeners to better evaluate hearing aid features in realistic conditions.
Hearing Systems (CAHR and CHeSS) Central Team
Leftmost back row: Senior Researchers Marton Marschall, Jens Hjortkjær, Head of Hearing Systems Torsten Dau, Associate Professors Jeremy Marozeau, Bastian Epp, Assistant Professor Tobias May, Guest Professor Sébastien Santurette
Front row: Guest Professor Ewen MacDonald, Senior Researcher Jens Bo Nielsen, Assistant Professor Anne Abigail Kressner, Gust Professors Dorothea Wendt and Thomas Lunner
Photo: Jesper Scheel DTU Health Tech