University of Southampton
Sound and vibration: improving the quality of life for the profoundly deaf and reducing noise pollution
For over forty years the university’s acoustic and vibration research have been contributing fundamentally to our understanding of sound and the resulting engineering innovations have had a profound impact on our quality of life. Significant developments include reducing noise in aircraft and railways; the application of bubble acoustics leading to a prototype device to monitor kidney therapy; and creating bilateral cochlear implants for profoundly deaf people which have been restoring a spatial sense of sound and so improving safety, multi-tasking performance and social confidence.