HEARING SYSTEM

• US 20160112811A1
• Filed: 10/20/2015
• Published: 04/21/2016
• 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, MINNAAR, Pauli, FARMANI, Mojtaba
• Granted Patent: US 10,181,328 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 hearing device configured to be worn at, behind and/or in an ear of a user comprising

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 sound signals, and

a processing unit configured to generate a binaural electrical output signal based on the electrical noisy sound signals and the wireless sound signals.

2. The hearing device according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to generate the binaural electrical output signal by estimating the direction to an active source using the direction sensitive input sound transducer unit and the processing unit determining a transfer function based on the estimated direction, the processing unit applying the transfer function to the wireless sound signals when generating the binaural electrical output signal.

3. The hearing device according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to generate the binaural electrical output signal by estimating the direction to an active source using the direction sensitive input sound transducer unit and the processing unit is configured use the estimated direction to generate the binaural electrical output sound signals comprising correct spatial cues.

4. The hearing device according to claim 1, wherein the hearing device comprises a memory configured to store a 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.

5. The hearing device according to claim 4, wherein the processing unit is configured to base the estimation of the sound source location relative to the hearing device on a statistical signal processing framework.

6. The hearing device according to claim 4, wherein

the wireless sound receiver unit is further configured to receive wireless sound signals from a second hearing device, which two hearing devices constitutes a binaural hearing system, the second hearing device comprising a direction sensitive input sound transducer,

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

7. The hearing device 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 sound source location whenever the value of the level difference is above a predetermined threshold value of the level difference.

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

9. The hearing device 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.

10. The hearing device 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 noisy time-frequency regions of the electrical noisy sound signals when generating the binaural electrical output sound signals.

11. The hearing device according to claim 10, wherein the processing unit is configured to identify noisy time-frequency regions by subtracting the electrical 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.

12. A hearing system comprising

at least one hearing device according to claim 1 and

at least one remote unit comprising

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

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

15. The hearing device according to claim 2, wherein the hearing device comprises a memory configured to store a 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.

16. The hearing device according to claim 3, wherein the hearing device comprises a memory configured to store a 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.

17. The hearing device according to claim 5, wherein

the wireless sound receiver unit is further configured to receive wireless sound signals from a second hearing device, which two hearing devices constitutes a binaural hearing system, the second hearing device comprising a direction sensitive input sound transducer,

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

18. The hearing device according to claim 2 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 sound source location whenever the value of the level difference is above a predetermined threshold value of the level difference.

19. The hearing device according to claim 3, 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 sound source location whenever the value of the level difference is above a predetermined threshold value of the level difference.

20. The hearing device according to claim 4, 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 sound source location whenever the value of the level difference is above a predetermined threshold value of the level difference.

13. A method for generating electrical output sound signals comprising the steps:

receiving acoustical sound signals from a target source via a direction sensitive input transducer,

generating electrical sound signals from the received acoustical sound signals,

receiving wireless sound signals representing noiseless sound signals from the target source,

processing the electrical sound signals and the noiseless electrical sound signals in order to generate binaural electrical output sound signals, such that the binaural electrical output sound signals comprises spatial cues for a user.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the step of processing the electrical sound signals and noiseless electrical sound signals comprises

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

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