APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR COMBINING AUDIO COMPRESSION AND FEEDBACK CANCELLATION IN A HEARING AID
First Claim
1. A hearing aid comprising:
- a microphone for converting sound into an audio signal;
feedback cancellation means including means for estimating a physical feedback signal of the hearing aid, and means for modelling a signal processing feedback signal to compensate for the estimated physical feedback signal;
subtraction means, connected to the output of the microphone and the output of the feedback cancellation means, for subtracting the signal processing feedback signal from the audio signal to form a compensated audio signal;
hearing aid processing means, connected to the output of the subtractor, for processing the compensated audio signal; and
speaker means, connected to the output of the hearing aid processing means, for converting the processed compensated audio signal into a sound signal;
wherein said feedback cancellation means forms a feedback path from the output of the hearing aid processing means to the input of the subtracting means; and
wherein said hearing aid processing means includes compression means for performing audio compression.
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Abstract
The present invention combines audio compression and feedback cancellation in an audio system such as a hearing aid. The feedback cancellation element of the present invention uses one or more filters to model the feedback path of the system and thereby subtract the expected feedback from the audio input signal before hearing aid processing occurs. The hearing aid processing includes audio compression, for example multiband compression. The operation of the audio compression element may be responsive to information gleaned from the feedback cancellation element, the feedback cancellation may be responsive to information gleaned from the compression element, or both.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A hearing aid comprising:
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a microphone for converting sound into an audio signal;
feedback cancellation means including means for estimating a physical feedback signal of the hearing aid, and means for modelling a signal processing feedback signal to compensate for the estimated physical feedback signal;
subtraction means, connected to the output of the microphone and the output of the feedback cancellation means, for subtracting the signal processing feedback signal from the audio signal to form a compensated audio signal;
hearing aid processing means, connected to the output of the subtractor, for processing the compensated audio signal; and
speaker means, connected to the output of the hearing aid processing means, for converting the processed compensated audio signal into a sound signal;
wherein said feedback cancellation means forms a feedback path from the output of the hearing aid processing means to the input of the subtracting means; and
wherein said hearing aid processing means includes compression means for performing audio compression. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification