Methods and apparatus for improving speech understanding in a large crowd
First Claim
1. A system for improving speech understanding in noisy environments, comprising:
- a central processing station that includes processing circuitry and wireless communication circuitry;
a plurality of hearing aids for wearing by a plurality of users, wherein each hearing aid includes an input transducer, an output transducer, processing circuitry, and a wireless transceiver for communicating with the central processing station;
wherein at least one of the plurality of hearing aids is configured to act as a target hearing aid adapted to be worn by a first user;
wherein at least one of the plurality of hearing aids is configured to act as a source hearing aid adapted to be worn by a second user;
wherein the source hearing aid is configured to extract speech spoken by a user of the source hearing aid as received by its input transducer and transmit the extracted speech signals to the central processing station;
wherein the central processing station is configured to perform hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for the target hearing aid on the received extracted speech signals and transmit the compensated signals to the target hearing aid; and
,wherein the target hearing aid is configured to decode the compensated signals received from the central processing station and play back the decoded signals through its output transducer.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and devices are described for improves speech understanding by hearing aid users in crowded environments. In one embodiment, a hearing aid wearer'"'"'s speech signal is extracted using the microphone or microphones in the hearing aid. The hearing aid is configured to wirelessly transmit the extracted speech signals to a central processing station that enhances the extracted speech signals received from all registered hearing aids. The central processing station processes the received speech signals individually based on provided hearing losses mixes the signals based on the provided preferences, wirelessly transmits the mixed signal to each registered hearing aid for play back.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A system for improving speech understanding in noisy environments, comprising:
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a central processing station that includes processing circuitry and wireless communication circuitry; a plurality of hearing aids for wearing by a plurality of users, wherein each hearing aid includes an input transducer, an output transducer, processing circuitry, and a wireless transceiver for communicating with the central processing station; wherein at least one of the plurality of hearing aids is configured to act as a target hearing aid adapted to be worn by a first user; wherein at least one of the plurality of hearing aids is configured to act as a source hearing aid adapted to be worn by a second user; wherein the source hearing aid is configured to extract speech spoken by a user of the source hearing aid as received by its input transducer and transmit the extracted speech signals to the central processing station; wherein the central processing station is configured to perform hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for the target hearing aid on the received extracted speech signals and transmit the compensated signals to the target hearing aid; and
,wherein the target hearing aid is configured to decode the compensated signals received from the central processing station and play back the decoded signals through its output transducer. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A central processing station for improving speech understanding by hearing aid users, comprising:
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processing circuitry and wireless communication circuitry for communicating with a source hearing aids adapted to be worn by a first user and a target hearing aid adapted to be worn by a second user; wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive extracted speech signals from the source hearing aid corresponding to speech spoken by the first user, perform hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for the target hearing aid on the received extracted speech signals, and transmit the compensated signals to the target hearing aid for decoding and playing back by the target hearing aid. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11)
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12. A method, comprising:
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extracting a hearing aid user'"'"'s speech signal using the microphone or microphones in a first hearing aid acting as a source hearing aid and adapted to be worn by a first user; wirelessly transmitting the extracted speech signals to a central processing station; operating the central processing station to enhance the extracted speech signals from the source hearing aid by processing the extracted speech signals based on provided hearing loss parameters from a second hearing aid acting as a target hearing aid adapted to be worn by a second user and wirelessly transmitting the enhanced speech signals to the target hearing aid for playback. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification