Binaural hearing instrument

• US 8,270,644 B2
• Filed: 11/19/2009
• Issued: 09/18/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oticon A/S (William Demant Fonden)
• Original Assignee: Oticon A/S (William Demant Fonden)
• Inventors: Greiner, Søren Bredahl
• Primary Examiner(s): Pan, Yuwen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le, Phan
• Application Number:
  US12/622,112
• Publication Number:
  US 20100124347A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,034 Days
• Field of Search: 381/314, 381/315, 381/23.1, 455/425
• US Class Current: 381/314
• 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

Abstract

A binaural hearing instrument set is described in which algorithms are split into a server part and a thin-client part. The respective server part of the algorithm is located in a first hearing instrument unit, while the thin-client part is located in a second unit in the binaural hearing instrument set. This is advantageous in that it enables optimization of the usage of combined processing resources in the two units.

Claims

1. A binaural hearing instrument set, comprising a first unit and a second unit, each of the units comprising processing circuitry, communication circuitry and memory circuitry, wherein,

the processing circuitry and the memory circuitry are configured to execute at least a first data processing algorithm,

the first data processing algorithm is configured such that it comprises software code that is configured to execute in a server mode and a client mode,

the first unit comprises the software code that is configured to execute in the server mode, and the second unit comprises the software code that is configured to execute in the client mode,

the communication circuitry is configured to provide a communication channel between the software code that is configured to execute in the server mode in the first unit and the software code that is configured to execute in the client mode in the second unit,

the processing circuitry and the memory circuitry are configured to execute a second data processing algorithm in addition to the first data processing algorithm,

the second data processing algorithm is configured such that it comprises software code that is configured to execute in a server mode and a client mode,

the first unit comprises the software code of the second algorithm that is executable in the client mode, and the second unit comprises the software code of the second algorithm that is executable in the server mode,

the software code of the first unit that is executable in the server mode is configured to process data pertaining to the first unit and the second unit, and configured to receive data from the second unit and transmit processed data to the second unit,

the software code of the second unit that is executable in the client mode is configured to transmit data to the first unit and receive processed data from the first unit,

the first unit and the second unit comprise respective audio input transducers and respective audio output transducers,

the software code of the first unit is configured to receive audio input data from the input transducer in the first unit, process the audio data from the input transducer in the first unit and output processed audio data to the audio output transducer in the first unit,

the software code of the first unit is configured to receive audio data from the second unit, process the received audio data and transmit processed audio data to the second unit, and

the software code of the second unit is configured receive audio input data from the input transducer in the second unit, transmit the audio data from the input transducer in the second unit, receive processed audio data from the first unit, and output the processed audio data to the audio output transducer in the second unit.

2. The binaural hearing instrument set of claim 1, wherein

the software code of the first unit that is executable in the server mode is configured to execute a major part of the data processing algorithm, and

the software code of the second unit that is executable in the client mode is configured to execute a minor part of the data processing algorithm.

3. The binaural hearing instrument set of claim 1 or 2, wherein

the software code of the first unit that is executable in the server mode is configured such that it has a server code size, and

the software code of the second unit that is executable in the client mode is configured such that it has a client code size that is smaller than the server code size.

4. The binaural hearing instrument set of claim 1, wherein

the software code of the first unit that is executable in the server mode is configured to utilize a first amount of memory during execution, and

the software code of the second unit that is executable in the client mode is configured to utilize a second amount of memory during execution, the second amount of memory being smaller than the first amount of memory.

5. The binaural hearing instrument set of claim 1, wherein

the first and the second data processing algorithms are identical, and

the hearing instrument set is configured to selectively activate or deactivate execution of the first data processing algorithm and to deactivate execution of the second data processing algorithm when execution of the first data processing algorithm is activated.

6. The binaural hearing instrument set of claim 5, wherein

the first unit is configured to activate execution of the first data processing algorithm in response to detecting a failure of the communication channel.

7. The binaural hearing instrument set of claim 5, wherein:

the processing circuitry and the memory circuitry of the second unit are configured to execute a third data processing algorithm,

the second unit is configured to selectively activate or deactivate execution of the third data processing algorithm and to transmit one or more status messages to the first unit, the status messages indicating the activation of the execution of the third data processing algorithm, and

the first unit is configured to activate execution of the first data processing algorithm in response to the status messages.

8. The binaural hearing instrument set of claim 5, wherein

the first unit is configured to reduce a clock frequency and/or a computation speed of the processing circuitry in the first unit in response to deactivating execution of the first data processing algorithm.