HEARING DEVICE COMPRISING A WIRELESS RECEIVER OF SOUND

• US 20180262847A1
• Filed: 03/08/2018
• Published: 09/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oticon A/S (William Demant Fonden)
• Original Assignee: Oticon A/S (William Demant Fonden)
• Inventors: PEDERSEN, Michael Syskind, JENSEN, Jesper, PETERSEN, Svend Oscar, THULE, Anders
• Granted Patent: US 10,582,314 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2225/55 Communication between hearing aids and external devices via a network for data exchange
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2430/25 Array processing for suppression of unwanted side-lobes in directivity characteristics, e.g. a blocking matrix
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/405 by combining a plurality of transducers
• 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 25/505 using digital signal processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 25/554 using a wireless connection, e.g. between microphone and amplifier or using Tcoils

Abstract

A hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, adapted for being located at or in an ear of a user and/or for being fully or partially implanted in the head of the user, comprises

• • A multitude of input units each providing an electric input signal representing a mixture of an audio signal from an audio signal source and possibly acoustic signals from other acoustic signal sources around the hearing device as received at the input unit in question;
  • A wireless receiver for receiving and providing a direct representation of the audio signal;
  • A beamformer filtering unit configured to receive said multitude of electric input signals, and providing a beamformed signal;
  • A combination unit for providing a mixed signal comprising a combination of said direct representation of the audio signal and said beamformed signal, or signals originating therefrom;
  • An output unit for presenting stimuli perceivable to the user as sound based on said mixed signal.

The beamformer filtering unit comprises an audio signal cancelling beamformer configured to provide that sound from the direction from the hearing device to the audio signal source is cancelled or attenuated compared to other directions in said beamformed signal. The application further relates to a method of operating a hearing device.

Claims

1. A hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, adapted for being located at or in an ear of a user and/or for being fully or partially implanted in the head of the user, the hearing device comprising

A multitude of input units each providing an electric input signal representing a mixture of an audio signal from an audio signal source and possibly acoustic signals from other acoustic signal sources around the hearing device as received at the input unit in question;

A wireless receiver for receiving and providing a direct representation of the audio signal;

A beamformer filtering unit configured to receive said multitude of electric input signals, and providing a beamformed signal;

A combination unit for providing a mixed signal comprising a combination of said direct representation of the audio signal and said beamformed signal, or signals originating therefrom;

An output unit for presenting stimuli perceivable to the user as sound based on said mixed signal,

wherein

the beamformer filtering unit comprises an audio signal cancelling beamformer configured to provide that sound from a direction from the hearing device to the audio signal source is cancelled or attenuated compared to other directions in said beamformed signal.

2. A hearing device according to claim 1 wherein the combination unit is a weighting unit providing the mixed signal as a weighted combination of said direct representation of the audio signal and said beamformed signal, or signals originating therefrom.

3. A hearing device according to claim 1 wherein the beamformer filtering unit comprises an MVDR beamformer.

4. A hearing device according to claim 1 comprising a wireless signal detector configured to detect whether or not—

at a given point in time—

a wireless direct representation of the audio signal is received by the hearing device, and to provide a detector signal indicative thereof.

5. A hearing device according to claim 1 comprising a control unit for receiving said direct representation of the audio signal and determining or defining a direction from the hearing device to the audio signal source.

6. A hearing device according to claim 1 wherein the beamformer filtering unit comprises an adaptive filter configured to determine a spatial filter, e.g. an MVDR beamformer, that minimizes the correlation between the acoustically propagated sound represented by said electric input signal(s) and the wirelessly received sound represented by said direct representation of the audio signal under the constraint that noise from a direction to another sound source of interest, e.g. to the side of the user, is unaltered.

7. A hearing device according to claim 6 comprising a controller configured to minimize the correlation between the acoustically propagated sound and the wirelessly received sound only, when the wireless signal is being received by the hearing device.

8. A hearing device according to claim 1 comprising a user interface allowing a user to influence a location of or direction to an acoustic signal source of interest to the user other than the audio signal source.

9. A hearing device according to claim 1 comprising a movement sensor for tracking a head movement, or is configured to receive data about head movement from another device, and the control unit is configured to update beamformer filtering coefficients in dependence of detected head movements.

10. A hearing device according to claim 1 comprising a hearing aid, a headset, an earphone, an ear protection device or a combination thereof.

11. A hearing device according to claim 1 configured to cancel or attenuate said audio signal from said audio signal source in dependence of said direct representation of the audio signal or on an estimate or indication of a direction to said audio signal source.

12. A hearing system comprising left and right hearing devices according to claim 1 and an auxiliary device, wherein the hearing system is adapted to establish a communication link between the hearing devices and the auxiliary device to provide that information, e.g. control and status signals, possibly audio signals, can be exchanged or forwarded from one to the other.

15. Use of a hearing device as claimed in claim 1 in a hearing aid.

18. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing executable instructions configured to be executed on an auxiliary device to implement a user interface for a hearing device according to claim 1.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium according to claim 18, wherein said executable instructions are configured to run on a cellular phone, e.g. a smartphone, or on another portable device allowing communication with said hearing device or said hearing system.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium according to claim 18, wherein said executable instructions are configured to allow a user to select a mode of operation of the hearing device or the hearing system where audio signals streamed to the hearing device(s) is/are mixed with signals from the environment.

21. A non-transitory computer-readable medium according to claim 18, wherein said executable instructions are configured to allow a user to select a manual mode wherein a direction of arrival of a target sound source among the acoustic around sources, other than the audio source, and/or the direction to the audio sound source can be manually selected, e.g. via the touch sensitive screen.

13. A method of operating a hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, adapted for being located at or in an ear of a user and/or for being fully or partially implanted in the head of the user, the method comprising

providing a multitude of electric input signals, each representing a mixture of an audio signal from an audio signal source and possibly other acoustic signals from other signal sources around the hearing device as received at a given input unit of the hearing device;

wirelessly receiving and providing a direct representation of the audio signal;

providing a beamformed signal in dependence of said multitude of electric input signals;

providing a mixed signal comprising a combination of said direct representation of the audio signal and said beamformed signal, or signals originating therefrom;

presenting stimuli perceivable to the user as sound based on said mixed signal; and

providing that sound from the direction from the hearing device to the audio signal source is cancelled or attenuated compared to other directions in said beamformed signal.

14. A method according to claim 13 comprising cancelling or attenuating said audio signal from said audio signal source in dependence of said direct representation of the audio signal or on an estimate or indication of a direction to said audio signal source.

16. A data processing system comprising a processor and program code means for causing the processor to perform the method of claim 13.

17. A computer program comprising instructions which, when the program is executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the method of claim 13.