# Portable Hearing Laboratory

> **NIH NIH R44** · BATANDCAT, INC. · 2020 · $129,403

## Abstract

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) has recently
funded a number of projects (referred further to as “concurrent projects”) to develop portable
signal processing tools that provide substantial computing power for real-time processing of the
acoustic environment. The overarching goal is to provide a large group of researchers
(”Community”) with the means to efficiently develop and evaluate, in collaborative multi-center
environments, novel signal processing schemes, individualized fitting procedures, and technical
solutions and services for hearing devices such as hearing aids and assistive listening devices.
In the already funded project 1R01DC015429 (Hohmann and Pavlovic) our emphases is on
developing open source code for real-time runtime environments for standard PC platforms with
standard sound hardware (Windows and Linux operating systems) as well as for ARM platforms
(Beaglebone black with 2/2- and 6/2-ch AD/DA (Linux)). Furthermore, to enable researchers to
perform testing with small size wearables in the field, ARM Cortex®-M4 micro-controller support
(i.e. library calls to the Cortex kernel routines) will be also included from July 1 2018.
The purpose of this complementary project is to develop a portable, rigid, versatile and
wearable platform featuring an ARM Cortex®-M4 processor and able to run software developed
in the concurrent project of Hohmann and Pavlovic. This Portable Hearing Aid Community
Platform (PHACP) consists of both hardware elements to provide the advanced desired
functionality and software routines to provide the basic intra-device data flow (operating
system) as well as interconnectivity with other devices such as telephones and remote
microphones.
What this projects brings is the only platform that is not only portable physically, but provides for
all the features that researchers may need to empower or even conceive new algorithms.
In addition, the company will launch the device for the sales into consumer market where it will
provide for unprecedented performance by the hearing impaired individuals. Most importantly,
the innovative stream of algorithms ported immediately by the researchers to the device would
provide for a continuous and sustainable competitive advantage.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9948611
- **Project number:** 5R44DC016247-04
- **Recipient organization:** BATANDCAT, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Caslav Vojislav Pavlovic
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $129,403
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-07-01 → 2021-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9948611

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9948611, Portable Hearing Laboratory (5R44DC016247-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9948611. Licensed CC0.

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