Исследование костного звукопроведения в системе «бионический протез – внутреннее ухо»
Authors: Байдаров А.А. , Безукладников И.И. , Майоров П.В. , Южаков А.А. , Еловиков А.М. , Асташина Н.Б. , Арутюнов С.Д. 
Published: February 2025

В статье выполнен анализ амплитудно-частотных и временных показателей предлагаемого научно-исследовательской группой технологического решения для реализации проекта по разработке «бионического протеза ушной раковины». Целью работы является определение и исследование аналитических и экспериментальных зависимостей показателей времени работы исследуемой системы от мощности воспроизведения звука, а также амплитуды подаваемого сигнала от его частоты для формирования вывода о соответствии современным требованиям слухового аппарата. Для решения поставленных задач был создан тестовый стенд, на котором выполнены экспериментальные исследования, на основании полученных данных сделаны выводы.

Introduction. The prevalence of microtia reaches 4.53 cases per 10,000 newborns. At the same time, most patients have partial or complete hearing impairment due to stenosis or atresia of the external auditory canal, which is closely related to their psychological state and social well-being. This negatively affects the quality of life, which rises the urgency and social significance of the problem. One of the ways to restore hearing is application of devices that provide bone conduction of sound (Bone Anchored Hearing Aid). In the complex rehabilitation of patients with microtia, in addition to restoring hearing function, an important aesthetic component is also the replacement of the outer ear defect by means of epitheses made of silicone material. However, we shall note that nowadays, the restoration of function and aesthetics are developing separately from each other. Within the framework of the study, we develop a design of a bionic ear, which allows to restore both the function (bone conduction) and the aesthetics of the lost organ by combining various components into a single design: the ear prosthesis, the fixation system (magnetic bar fixation on implants), the microphone , a sound processing unit based on a specialized digital signal processor (DSP) with built-in analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, a Bluetooth radio channel module for wireless control and reception of external audio signals, and a sound vibration emitter. The goal of the work was to solve one of the particular tasks of the study - to evaluate the technical parameters of the vibration emitter in the "emitter-implant-bone tissue" system of a bionic ear prosthesis. Conclusion. The experiment carried out on the developed test facility, which was closely approximated to real conditions, allowed us to identify a number of drawbacks inherent in the current design of the bionic ear. The main drawback is the weak construction of the attachment of the ear emitter to the bone tissues of the head, which significantly increases distortions in the audible frequency range, making them excessively high in some cases (100 Hz). In addition to this, the use of an improved test facility allowed to determine the resonant characteristics of the "bionic ear - inner ear" system, subject to further compensation by software or hardware. One of the options for changing the amplitude-frequency characteristic and resonance characteristics is to change the attachment points of the prosthesis elements in the bone tissues. Such an experiment is planned as part of the further work on the project. Nevertheless, the outcomes of initial experiments have shown sufficient uniformity of amplitude-frequency characteristic, which can be compensated by software filtering without significant delays.