Autodesk Names Cochlear, Creator of the Baha Hearing System, as Inventor of the Month

By DE Editors

Autodesk has named Cochlear Bone Anchored Solutions, a division of Cochlear Ltd (Cochlear) and a global leader in the development and manufacturing of implantable hearing solutions, as Autodesk Inventor of the Month for February 2009.

Cochlear successfully used Autodesk Inventor software to develop a digital prototype of the Baha bone conduction hearing solution. The Baha system uses direct bone conduction to transfer sound to the cochlea, the auditory center of the inner ear. This method has the advantage of bypassing the outer and middle ear—which might be blocked, damaged or otherwise impaired—when transmitting sound vibrations to the inner ear. As a result, individuals with hearing loss can experience clearer sound in everyday situations like phone calls and group meetings.

"To design the bone conduction implant and the external sound processor that constitute the Baha system, we need to be able to precisely design, engineer, and manufacture parts on the scale of one hundred-thousandths of a millimeter," says Daniel Radberg, senior design engineer and CAD manager at Cochlear BAS, which is responsible for the Baha product line. "Autodesk Inventor is invaluable in helping us achieve that precision by giving us detailed 3D views of our products before we've built anything."

For more information, visit Autodesk.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.