Towards Non-Invasive Diagnosis System for Middle-Ear Dysfunctions Based on Principles of Impulse Response Measurement

Sweep frequency impedance (SFI) meter can be used to diagnose the middle-ear dysfunctions. However, the performance of the previous SFI meter has easily been degraded by noise inside the ear canal. This paper proposed a method for stably measuring middle-ear dynamic characteristics with applying the principles of impulse response measurement. Noise robustness for the proposed method was evaluated using a 2-cc cavity, showing that the proposed method had almost the same performance even under -6-dB signal-to-noise ratio condition compared to that under clean condition. Additionally, the SFI measurement was conducted for human ears with normal middle-ear conditions and with ossicular-chain dysfunctions, showing that our improved SFI meter successfully monitor the middle-ear dynamic characteristics with more robustness of noise.