Abstract— Inthis paper, we propose a Smartphone-based hearing assistive system tofacilitate speech recognition for various target users, who could benefit fromenhanced listening clarity in the classroom. The system consists of transmitterand receiver devices (e.g., Smartphone and Bluetooth headset) for voicetransmission, and an Android mobile application that controls and connects thedifferent devices via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi technology. The wireless transmissionof voice signals between devices overcomes the reverberation and ambient noiseeffects in the classroom. The main functionalities of System include: 1)configurable transmitter/receiver assignment, to allow flexible designation oftransmitter/receiver roles; 2) advanced noise-reduction techniques; 3) audiorecording; and 4) voice-to-text conversion, to give students visual text aid.All the functions are implemented as a mobile application with aneasy-to-navigate user interface. Experiments show the effectiveness of thenoise-reduction schemes at low signal-to-noise ratios in terms of standardspeech perception and quality indices, and show the effectiveness of System inmaintaining voice-to-text conversion accuracy regardless of the distancebetween the speaker and listener. Future applications of System are alsodiscussed.
Keywords: Wireless assistive technologies, Android phonetechnologies, hearing assistive systems, speech recognition, e-health,m-health.