Andrew Czyzewski

Intelligent earplug could help avoid damage to hearing

News

A new intelligent earplug system for offshore workers has the ability to calculate hearing thresholds in real time and make appropriate warnings.

A pilot scheme of the system — which encompases the special earplugs and database — is currently being carried among 80 workers at Norwegian company Statoil, overseen by researchers at SINTEF.

About 600 new or aggravated cases of hearing damage are reported to the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority each year.

‘Statoil has realised that this is one of the last things that are happening to their workers — they are losing their hearing — everything else is very safe offshore,’ said Olav Kvaløy of SINTEF, the Norwegian Research Institute.

The earplug itself is a variant of one already developed by SINTEF and produced by Nacre AS for the military, but now with electronics that are safe for a gas environment.

It is equipped with an external microphone that picks up noise from the surroundings. The sound is processed digitally and harmful noise filtered out. It is then transmitted to the loudspeaker on the inside of the plug so that the wearer can hear what is going on in his or her surroundings.

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