Hearing system

• US 10,431,239 B2
• Filed: 12/06/2018
• Issued: 10/01/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oticon A/S (William Demant Fonden)
• Original Assignee: Oticon A/S (William Demant Fonden)
• Inventors: Jensen, Jesper, Pedersen, Michael Syskind, Farmani, Mojtaba, Minnaar, Pauli
• Primary Examiner(s): Holder, Regina N
• Application Number:
  US16/212,405
• Publication Number:
  US 20190115041A1
• Time in Patent Office: 299 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0232 Processing in the frequency domain
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 1/1083 Reduction of ambient noise active noise reduction per se G10K11/175; protective devices for the ear, e.g. providing acoustic protection A61F11/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2225/43 Signal processing in hearing aids to enhance the speech intelligibility
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2410/05 Noise reduction with a separate noise microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/407 Circuits for combining signals of a plurality of transducers
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/43 Electronic input selection or mixing based on input signal analysis, e.g. mixing or selection between microphone and telecoil or between microphones with different directivity characteristics H04R25/407 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/552 Binaural
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/554 using a wireless connection, e.g. between microphone and amplifier or using Tcoils
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/558 Remote control, e.g. of amplification, frequency
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 5/033 Headphones for stereophonic communication details thereof, e.g. relating to batteries, cables or control elements H04R1/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2400/11 Positioning of individual sound objects, e.g. moving airplane, within a sound field H04S2420/13 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2420/01 Enhancing the perception of the sound image or of the spatial distribution using head related transfer functions [HRTF's] or equivalents thereof, e.g. interaural time difference [ITD] or interaural level difference [ILD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/302 Electronic adaptation of stereophonic sound system to listener position or orientation H04S7/301 takes precedence

Abstract

The present disclosure regards a hearing device configured to receive acoustical sound signals and to generate output sound signals comprising spatial cues.

Claims

1. A binaural hearing aid system comprising a first hearing aid device configured to be worn at, behind and/or in an ear of a user, and a second hearing aid device configured to be worn at, behind and/or in an ear of a user, wherein the first hearing aid device comprises:

a direction sensitive input sound transducer unit configured to convert acoustical sound signals into electrical noisy sound signals,

a wireless sound receiver unit configured to receive wireless sound signals from a remote device, the wireless sound signals representing noiseless electrical sound signals,

and

a memory storing sets of head related impulse responses for different positions relative to the direction sensitive input transducer unit,

wherein a processing unit is configured to estimate the direction to an active source, and the processing unit configured to map the electrical noisy sound signals and the wireless sound signals into binaural electrical output signals by convolving the noiseless electrical sound signals with the set of the head related impulse responses stored in the memory in correspondence with the estimated sound source location.

2. The binaural hearing aid system according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to estimate the direction to an active source by use of Maximum-Likelihood Estimation.

3. The binaural hearing aid system according to claim 1, wherein the sets of head related impulse responses stored in the memory correspond to a respective set of predetermined transfer functions, and wherein the processing unit is configured to determine a most likely sound source location relative to the hearing device based on

processed electrical sound signals generated by applying each of the set of predetermined transfer functions to the noiseless electrical sound signals, and

electrical sound signals from the direction sensitive input sound transducer.

4. The binaural hearing aid system according to claim 3, wherein the processing unit is configured to determine the most likely sound source location relative to the hearing device based on a statistical signal processing framework.

5. The binaural hearing aid system according to claim 3, wherein

the wireless sound receiver unit is further configured to receive wireless sound signals from the second hearing device, the second hearing device comprising a direction sensitive input sound transducer,

the processor is configured to determine the most likely sound source location relative to the binaural hearing system based further on electrical sound signals from the second hearing device'"'"'s direction sensitive input sound transducer.

6. The binaural hearing aid system according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to determine a value of a level difference of the noiseless electrical sound signals between two consecutive points of time, and wherein the processing unit is configured to estimate the direction to the active source whenever the value of the level difference is above a predetermined threshold value of the level difference.

7. The binaural hearing aid system according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to determine a delay between the reception of the wireless sound signals and the corresponding electrical noisy sound signals, and apply the delay to the wireless sound signals.

8. The binaural hearing aid system according to claim 1, further comprising an output sound transducer configured to generate stimuli from electrical output sound signals, which are perceivable as sounds by the user.

9. The binaural hearing aid system according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to use the wireless sound signals in order to identify noisy time-frequency regions in the electrical noisy sound signals, and wherein the processing unit is configured to attenuate the noisy time-frequency regions of the electrical noisy sound signals when generating the binaural electrical output sound signals.

10. The hearing device according to claim 9, wherein the processing unit is configured to identify noisy time-frequency regions by subtracting the electrical noisy sound signals from the noiseless electrical sound signals and determining whether time-frequency regions of the resulting electrical sound signals are above a predetermined value of a noise detection threshold.

11. A hearing system comprising

the first hearing aid device of the binaural hearing aid system according to claim 1, and

the remote device according to claim 1, comprising

an input sound transducer unit configured to receive acoustical sound signals and to generate the noiseless electrical sound signals,

a transmitter configured to generate the wireless sound signals from the noiseless electrical sound signals and to transmit the wireless sound signals to the wireless sound receiver unit of the first hearing aid device.

12. A method for generating electrical output sound signals in a binaural hearing aid system comprising a first hearing aid device configured to be worn at, behind and/or in an ear of a user, and a second hearing aid device configured to be worn at, behind and/or in an ear of a user, the method comprising the steps:

receiving acoustical sound signals from a target source via a direction sensitive input sound transducer unit in the first hearing aid device,

using the direction sensitive input sound transducer to generate electrical noisy sound signals from the received acoustical sound signals,

receiving, via a wireless sound receiver unit in the first hearing aid device, wireless sound signals from a remote device representing noiseless electrical sound signals from the target source,

storing, within a memory in the first hearing aid device, sets of head related impulse responses for different positions relative to the direction sensitive input transducer unit,

wherein the binaural electrical output signals are generated by the processing unit estimating the direction to an active source, and mapping the electrical noisy sound signals and the wireless sound signals into the binaural electrical output signals by convolving the noiseless electrical sound signals with the set of the head related impulse responses stored in the memory in correspondence with the estimated sound source location.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein the mapping of the electrical noisy sound signals and noiseless electrical sound signals by the processing unit comprises

using the noiseless electrical sound signals to identify noisy time-frequency regions in the electrical noisy sound signals, and

attenuating the noisy time-frequency regions of the electrical noisy sound signals in order to generate the binaural electrical output sound signals.