A Novel Ergodic CA Cochlear Model for Reproductions of Nonlinear Frequency Response Characteristics of Mammalian Cochlear Partitions and Ultra-Low-Power Implementation

In this paper, a novel ergodic cellular automaton cochlear partition model is proposed. It is shown that the proposed model can reproduce nonlinear frequency response characteristics of mammalians (guinea pig and cat) to sound inputs. In addition, the proposed model is implemented by a field programmable gate array and its operations are validated by experiments. It is then shown that the proposed model consumes significantly lower power than a standard digital-processor-based cochlear partition model. Furthermore, it is discussed that the results of this paper will contribute to the development of an ultra-low-power cochlear implant that can reproduce nonlinear responses of the human cochlea.