Ken Takaki（高木 健）
Ken Takaki is a Project Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. His research focuses on improving the lives of people with hearing impairments. He is exploring new approaches for wearable devices, bone conduction, and speech processing.
Ken received his Ph.D. in Engineering and Master's degree in information science and technology and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan in 2024, 2021 and 2019.
He has single-sided deafness, which led him to create asEars, a glasses-type device for people with hearing loss in one ear. He is also involved in the management of Kikoiro, a community for people with hearing loss in one ear, in order to improve the lives of people with hearing loss in one ear.
E-mail: takaki<at>akg.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Address: Room #112C1 Bldg. 2, Faculty of Eng. The Univ. of Tokyo 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656 JAPAN
(Japanese below)
私は、東京大学大学院工学系研究科の特任助教で、聴覚障害者のQoL向上を目指して研究しています。そのために、ウェアラブルデバイス、骨伝導、音声処理などの新しいアプローチを模索しています。
東京大学で2024年に工学系研究科で博士号を取得し、2021年に情報理工学系研究科の修士課程を修了し、2019年に工学部電気電子工学科を卒業しました。
私自身が片耳難聴であることをきっかけに、2017年に片耳難聴者向けのメガネ型デバイス「asEars」の開発を始めました。また、片耳難聴者の生活をより良くするために、片耳難聴者コミュニティ「きこいろ」の運営にも携わっています。
Recent news
Oct, 2023
I gave an invited talk at the 148th IPSJ SLP workshop.
IPSJ SLP 研究会にてasEarsに関する招待講演を行いました
Oct, 2023
We presented our work at the 68th Congress of Japan Audiological Society.
日本聴覚医学会学術講演会にてasEarsを用いた聴取成績に関する論文を発表しました
April, 2023
We presented our work at ACM CHI 2023 and was won the Honorable Mention award.
ACM CHI 2023 にてフルペーパーを発表し、Honorable Mention Award を受賞しました
Featured projects
asEars sound glasses provide enjoyable communication for people with single-sided deafness (SSD). People suffering from SSD have trouble listening to others in noisy situations, and find it difficult to enjoy their conversation. asEars collects the sound that comes from the deaf side by a pair of microphones and transmits it to the other side by a bone conduction speaker. This enables them to listen to others more clearly and enjoy communication better than ever.
Related publications
K. Takaki, E. Nozaki, T. Kanai, A. Hautasaari, A. Kashio, D. Sato, T. Kamogashira, T. Uranaka, S. Urata, H. Koyama, T. Yamasoba, and Y. Kawahara, ”asEars: Designing and Evaluating the User Experience of Wearable Assistive Devices for Single-Sided Deafness,” in Proc. of ACM CHI, No.44, pp.1-17, April 2023. (Honorable Mention Award)
Supporting selective listening between online and offline speakers by focusing on the cocktail party effect
Online conferencing is taking the form of having conversations with people in remote locations, and sometimes with people around them. As a result, it is becoming more and more important for users to be able to concentrate on listening only to what they are interested in from the audio of online and offline speakers. In this research, we focus on the cocktail party effect and propose a speech processing method that facilitates this effect, and realize a system that facilitates selective listening to both online and offline speakers.
Project grant website (Japanese)
Related publications
高木 健，齋藤大輔，川原圭博，"畳み込みニューラルネットワークによる複数話者音声の選択的聴取性向上，" 電子情報通信学会ソサイエティ大会，A-5-4，オンライン，Sept. 2021.
Coil design for wireless power transfer and communication over hinges of smart glasses
To make smart glasses foldable, we need wiring within the hinges for interconnecting the sensors and displays. This structure, however, degrades the appearance and durability of smart glasses. To solve this problem, we proposed embedding coils in the hinge’s vicinity for wireless power transfer and communication. This method can safely supply 2 W of power with 50% efficiency and can communicate at the speed of 1.7 Mbps, therefore, it can be used for eyeglass devices that present images and sounds to the user.
Related publications
K. Takaki, T. Sasatani, H. Kasashima, Y. Kawahara, and T. Naemura, ”Coil design for wireless power transfer and communication over hinges of smart glasses,” in Proceedings of the 2020 International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp.79–83, Sept. 2020.
Acoustic Length Sensor for Soft Extensible Pneumatic Actuators With a Frequency Characteristics Model
Soft robots are safe and suitable for interaction with people. On the other hand, they are easily deformed when subjected to an external force. Hence, appropriate control is necessary for their use, based on the state of the actuators represented by their length. However, conventional sensors cannot sense a broad range of length, and they have a non-linear property since they rely on the physical deformation of the sensor itself. We proposed a length sensor that can accurately measure a wide range of lengths by utilizing the acoustic characteristics of the air column inside the actuators.
Related publications
K. Takaki, Y. Taguchi, S. Nishikawa, R. Niiyama and Y. Kawahara, ”Acoustic Length Sensor for Soft Extensible Pneumatic Actuators With a Frequency Characteristics Model,” in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 4292–4297, Oct.2019. (Young Award).
A method for estimating the bone-conducted transfer function by observing the sound radiated into the ear canal
The measurement of bone conduction hearing requires intensive operation by the user and a long measurement time, making it impractical to measure every time. In this study, we established a method to measure the bone conduction hearing every time the user wears a bone conduction device by using the bone conduction sound radiated into the ear canal. This enabled us to develop a measurement method that is quick and does not involve any manipulation by the user.
Related publications
高木健，川原圭博，"骨導音の外耳道に放射された音を観測することによる骨導伝達関数の推定方法，" 電子情報通信学会ソサイエティ大会，A-5-3，金沢，Sept. 2018.
