Developing modern high-tech hearing systems with his team: Prof Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier

The research team led by Oldenburg physicist and physician Birger Kollmeier has brought about a rethink in the entire hearing system industry. It has now been nominated as one of four teams for the prestigious German Future Prize 2012.

Prof Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier, Prof Dr Volker Hohmann (both University of Oldenburg, Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all") and Dr Torsten Niederdränk (Siemens AG) have been nominated as one of four teams for the prestigious German Future Prize 2012, as announced by the Office of the Federal President.

The prestigious science prize is awarded by the Federal President to particularly successful work in the field of technology and innovation that achieves outstanding results in science and leads to products that will shape the future. The proposal submitted by the German Research Foundation by the team led by Prof Dr Dr Kollmeier from the University of Oldenburg was nominated by a high-ranking jury for the final round, the "circle of the best". Kollmeier also heads the HörTech Center of Competence, the Fraunhofer Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology and is one of the leading figures in the "Auditory Valley" research and development network.

The specific development honoured with this nomination is obvious and plausible, yet extremely complicated to implement: The interaction of both ears during hearing should also be taken into account in the provision of hearing aids. As with vision, a spatial impression is only created through the interaction of the left and right ear. This makes it possible to follow a single conversation in a lively environment, as background noise and reverberation can be suppressed and attention can be focussed on the desired speech source.

Until the 1990s, hearing systems were primarily focussed on treating each individual ear. With its developments, Kollmeier's research team has contributed to a decisive rethink in the entire industry. "The first step was to understand the complex processes of natural hearing and, based on this, develop the first algorithms (calculation methods) for hearing systems that take over these processes for people with hearing impairments," explains Kollmeier.

The transformation from a bulky laboratory prototype to a modern high-tech hearing system brought further challenges: "Which hearing aid user accepts a wire connection between the left and right ear? So we had to develop a fast, wireless data connection with a high data rate and low energy consumption," says engineer Dr Torsten Niederdränk (Siemens AG), explaining the further development path.

The joint work of the research team resulted in a number of patents. Siemens Audiologische Technik launched the first binaural devices on the market back in 2004. "We are motivated by the fact that our invention is helping many people today," says Prof. Dr Volker Hohmann, an expert in model-based signal processing for hearing aids at the University of Oldenburg, describing the incentive for the joint innovation. Hearing loss is widespread; in the European Union, around 56 million adults between the ages of 18 and 80 have a hearing loss that requires treatment. This means that one in six adults is affected, half of whom are of working age.

The fact that the invention of "binaural hearing systems" is now included in almost all modern devices is mainly due to the good co-operation between science and industry. Initially, this was supported by a funding programme from the Federal Ministry of Science and Research and was later successfully continued as part of the Auditory Valley network.

In the "Hearing4all" cluster of excellence, which is funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments, scientists conduct research and development for the benefit of the hearing impaired in collaboration with university and non-university partners. The Auditory Valley connects leading research institutions from Lower Saxony with companies from the audiological field. The technologies will not only benefit people with hearing loss, but also people with normal hearing in acoustically challenging situations.

For the nominated team, it will remain exciting until the very last minute: the winner of the 2012 German Future Prize will not be announced until the award ceremony by Federal President Gauck. ZDF will broadcast the gala on 28 November at 10.15 pm.

[University press release from 12/09/2012]