HEARING AID AND METHOD OF OPERATING A HEARING AID

• US 20080260190A1
• Filed: 04/17/2008
• Published: 10/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/18/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Widex A/S (WS Audiology A/S)
• Original Assignee: Widex A/S (WS Audiology A/S)
• Inventors: KIDMOSE, Preben
• Granted Patent: US 8,406,440 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/314
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2225/39 Aspects relating to automatic logging of sound environment parameters and the performance of the hearing aid during use, e.g. histogram logging, or of user selected programs or settings in the hearing aid, e.g. usage logging
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2225/41 Detection or adaptation of hearing aid parameters or programs to listening situation, e.g. pub, forest
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/305 Self-monitoring or self-testing
• 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 25/505 using digital signal processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/552 Binaural
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/70 Adaptation of deaf aid to hearing loss, e.g. initial electronic fitting

Abstract

A hearing aid is provided which has at least one input transducer for providing an input signal, at least one signal processing channel receiving at least a portion of said input signal, a hearing aid processor for processing said portion of said input signal to produce at least one output signal, an output transducer responsive to said output signal, and a data logger receiving said portion of said input signal for logging of input signal data. The data logger comprises a characterisation unit for characterising and logging parameters of the input signal data, and a memory unit for storing said parameters.

Claims

1. A hearing aid having an input transducer for providing an input signal, a hearing aid processor for processing said input signal to produce at least one output signal, an output transducer responsive to said output signal, and a data logger receiving said portion of said input signal for logging of input signal data, wherein said data logger comprises means for selecting a rate of logging, means for storing the selected rate of logging, and a characterisation unit for characterising and logging at least one of the following parameters of the sound environment:

at least one slope of the sound spectrum of said input signal data;

a modulation of said input signal data; and

a sound pressure level of the noise of said input signal data.

2. The hearing aid according to claim 1, comprising a memory unit for storing said logged parameters, wherein said logged parameters include statistics of features characterising the sound environment stored as histogram logging values, or the time the hearing aid user is using different programs available in the hearing aid.

3. The hearing aid according to claim 1, comprising:

a filter bank for dividing said input signal into a plurality of frequency bands; and

wherein said data logger logs said input signal data in at least one of said frequency bands.

4. The hearing aid according to claim 1, comprising:

at least one percentile estimator for providing at least one of a 10%, 50%, 90%, or 99% percentile for said input signal data or in at least one of said frequency bands.

5. The hearing aid according to claim 4, wherein said characterisation unit is adapted to estimate a particular slope of the sound spectrum by determining a least square fit of a line of a particular percentile in at least one of said frequency bands.

6. The hearing aid according to claim 1, wherein said characterisation unit is adapted to determine said modulation by determining the dynamic range of said input signal data.

7. The hearing aid according to claim 6, wherein said characterisation unit is adapted to determine said dynamic range by taking the difference between a low and a high percentile of said input signal data.

8. The hearing aid according to claim 1, wherein said characterisation unit is adapted to determine said sound pressure level of the noise of said input signal data by determining a low percentile of said input signal data.

9. The hearing aid according to claim 1, wherein said data logger logs said parameters in a N-dimensional histogram, wherein N is the number of logged parameters, and wherein said histogram provides a plurality of bins, each bin comprising a counter reflecting the number of logs in one of said classes of one of said parameters.

10. The hearing aid according to claim 1, wherein said data logger further comprises a timer unit, and said timer unit being adapted to provide an automatic modification of the logging rate by lowering said logging rate after a particular time interval.

11. The hearing aid according to claim 9, wherein said data logger comprises a trigger unit, said trigger unit being adapted to provide an automatic modification of the logging rate by lowering said logging rate whenever said counter has reached a particular value.

12. The hearing aid according to claim 9, wherein said memory unit comprises a volatile memory for building up said histogram, and further comprises a non-volatile memory to which said histogram is written with a slower update rate.

13. The hearing aid according to claims 12, wherein said trigger unit is adapted to trigger said histogram logging by a user-evoked event, wherein said trigger unit is adapted to reset the histogram whenever said event occurs and said data logger is adapted to build up a new histogram over a predetermined time period.

14. The hearing aid according to claim 1, wherein said memory unit provides an EEPROM as a non-volatile memory for storing said logged parameters, wherein said data logger is adapted to write said parameters to said EEPROM by using logarithmic mapping, lowering the sampling rate in subsequent stages, and real time analysis to extract condensed data for storage.

15. The hearing aid according to claim 1, comprising an interface for individually enabling or disabling said logging of said histogram logging values or said usage logging values by a fitting procedure.

16. The hearing aid according to claim 1, wherein said characterisation unit is adapted to characterise and log said parameters depending on the spatial characteristic of said input signal data.

17. A hearing aid system comprising at least two hearing aids, each of said hearing aids having an input transducer for providing an input signal, a hearing aid processor for processing said input signal to produce at least one output signal, an output transducer responsive to said output signal, and a data logger receiving said portion of said input signal for logging of input signal data, wherein said data logger comprises means for selecting a rate of logging, means for storing the selected rate of logging, and a characterisation unit for characterising and logging at least one of the following parameters of the sound environment:

at least one slope of the sound spectrum of said input signal data;

a modulation of said input signal data; and

a sound pressure level of the noise of said input signal data, and fitted for use by a single user, wherein the load of logging is shared among said two hearing aids, and wherein said two hearing aids are adapted to operate in time synchronisation.

18. A method of operating a hearing aid comprising:

receiving an input signal and providing at least a portion of said input signal for further processing;

processing at least said portion of said input signal to produce at least one output signal and outputting said output signal;

selecting a rate of logging

storing the selected rate of logging, and

characterizing and logging at least one of the following parameters

at least one slope of the sound spectrum of said input signal,

a modulation of said input signal, and

a sound pressure level of the noise of said input signal.

19. The method according to claim 18, comprising the step of reading out said parameters as part of a fitting session by using a programming interface of said hearing aid.

20. A computer program comprising executable program code which, when executed on a computer, executes a method of operating a hearing aid comprising:

receiving an input signal and providing at least a portion of said input signal for further processing;

processing at least said portion of said input signal to produce at least one output signal and outputting said output signal;

selecting a rate of logging

storing the selected rate of logging, and

characterizing and logging at least one of the following parameters

at least one slope of the sound spectrum of said input signal,

a modulation of said input signal, and

a sound pressure level of the noise of said input signal.