Powered Electronic Augmentations in Hearing Protection Technology Circa 2010 including Active Noise Reduction, Electronically-Modulated Sound Transmission, and Tactical Communications Devices: Review of Design, Testing, and Research.

Augmented or enhanced hearing protection devices (HPDs), as contrasted with conventional HPDs, which attenuate noise strictly through static, passive means, have proliferated in the past decade. These advancements in HPDs are generally delineated into passive (non-powered) and active (powered electronic) designs. While passive augmentations are reviewed in a parallel paper elsewhere in this issue, active augmentations include various analog and digital circuits for achieving electronic phase cancellation of noise; electronic modulated sound transmission circuits, which amplify a passband of ambient sound and transmit it through the HPD (ceasing to amplify at a pre-determined noise level); and tactical communications and protection systems (TCAPS), which may include any of the aforementioned electronic elements plus microphone/receiver communications elements. The intended benefits of electronic augmented HPDs, some of which are realized in practice and others not, include more natural hearing for the user, improved speech communications and signal detection, reduced noise-induced annoyance, improved military tactics, stealth and gunfire protection, and provision of protection that is somewhat tailored for the user's needs, noise exposure, and/or job requirements. This paper provides a technical overview of active augmented HPDs that were available or have been prototyped circa early-2010. In some cases, no empirical research on the augmentations and their performance was available in the research literature; in these cases, this review relied on patents, corporate literature, and/or the author's experience. For other technologies, a limited amount of empirical, operational performance research was available and it is covered herein. Finally, in view that at the juncture of this article the United States (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was in the process of promulgating a comprehensive new federal law to govern the testing and labeling of hearing protectors of various types, those elements of the proposed law pertaining to specific augmentation technologies are mentioned herein, along with that proposed law's cited ANSI standards, as well as ISO standards that address hearing protector attenuation testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]