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Dental drill noise reduction device

Completed

Patient fear of dental drill (also known as a dental handpiece) noise is a worldwide issue. Drill noise can be very uncomfortable for patients and dentists due to its high-frequency characteristic and leads to avoidance of treatment, particularly by more extreme sufferers, as well as causing distress to many who still undergo treatment despite their fear.

SileDent is a commercialisation project in collaboration with TBG Solutions Ltd and King’s College London Dental Institute, funded by Innovate UK. This research has developed a novel Adaptive Filtering (AF) device for reducing dental drill noise to be worn by patients that maintains vital communication between the dentist and patient. Audio signals typically comprise several characteristics and in practice, each of these has different relationships to the AF parameters.

dental device

This research has tuned the AF parameters in terms of relevant audio signal performance measures. Many device prototypes are currently undergoing trials with dentists in the UK and some international sites.


Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project

Professor Mark Atherton

Related Research Group(s)

lab

Design and Manufacturing - Developing products, services and manufacturing processes that will deliver economically and environmentally sustainable solutions, based on design principles derived from an understanding of human capabilities and limitations.


Partnering with confidence

Organisations interested in our research can partner with us with confidence backed by an external and independent benchmark: The Knowledge Exchange Framework. Read more.


Project last modified 16/01/2024