Hearing assistance system with own voice detection

• US 9,712,926 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2015
• Issued: 07/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Starkey Laboratories Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Starkey Laboratories Incorporated
• Inventors: Merks, Ivo
• Primary Examiner(s): Ni, Suhan
• Application Number:
  US14/976,711
• Publication Number:
  US 20160192089A1
• Time in Patent Office: 575 Days
• Field of Search: 381312-313, 381317-318
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/78 Detection of presence or absence of voice signals switching of direction of transmission by voice frequency in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2410/01 Noise reduction using microphones having different directional characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2460/01 Hearing devices using active noise cancellation
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2460/05 Electronic compensation of the occlusion effect
• 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 25/505 using digital signal processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/005 for combining the signals of two or more microphones specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407

Abstract

A hearing assistance system includes a pair of left and right hearing assistance devices to be worn by a wearer and uses both of the left and right hearing assistance devices to detect the voice of the wearer. The left and right hearing assistance devices each include first and second microphones at different locations. Various embodiments detect the voice of the wearer using signals produced by the first and second microphones of the left hearing assistance device and the first and second microphones of the right hearing assistance device. Various embodiments use outcome of detection of the voice of the wearer performed by the left hearing assistance device and the outcome of detection of the voice of the wearer performed the right hearing assistance device to determine whether to declare a detection of the voice of the wearer.

Claims

1. A first hearing device for detecting a voice of a wearer of the first hearing device and a second hearing device, each hearing device having a plurality of microphones, the first hearing device comprising:

a voice detector comprising an adaptive filter configured to receive microphone signals from the plurality of microphones of the hearing device and to produce first output information indicative of detection of the voice of the wearer by the first hearing device, the voice detector further configured to receive second output information wirelessly from the second hearing device that indicates detection of the voice of the wearer by another voice detector in the second hearing device using the plurality of microphones of the second hearing device, wherein the voice detector is programmed to determine the wearer'"'"'s own voice based on the first output information and the second output information.

2. The first hearing device of claim 1, wherein the voice detector is configured to determine the wearer'"'"'s own voice using a first detection strength parameter of the first output information and a second detection strength parameter of the second output information, the first and second detection strength parameters each being a measure of likeliness of actual existence of the voice of wearer.

3. The first hearing device of claim 2, wherein the voice detector is configured to produce the first output information using a largest normalized coefficient of the adaptive filter.

4. The first hearing device of claim 3, wherein the voice detector is configured to produce the first output information using the largest normalized coefficient of the adaptive filter, a difference between a power of an error signal produced by the adaptive filter and a power of a microphone signal of the microphone signals.

5. The first hearing device of claim 2, wherein the voice detector is configured to produce the first output information using a difference between a power of an error signal produced by the adaptive filter and a power of a microphone signal of the microphone signals.

6. The first hearing device of claim 2, wherein the voice detector is configured to determine the wearer'"'"'s own voice using a weighted combination of the first output information and the second output information.

7. A pair of hearing devices configured to be worn by a wearer, comprising:

a plurality of microphones and a voice detector in each hearing device of the pair of hearing devices, the voice detector including a digital adaptive filter configured to receive electrical signals that are produced by the plurality of microphones and digitized, and to produce output information indicative a voice of the wearer using the received electrical signals, the voice detector in at least one hearing device of the pair of hearing devices configured to receive the output information from the other hearing device of the pair of hearing devices wirelessly and to detect the voice of the wearer using the output information produced by both hearing devices of the pair of hearing devices.

8. The pair of hearing devices of claim 7, wherein the plurality of microphones in each hearing device of the pair of hearing devices comprises first and second microphones positioned to provide a time difference for the voice of the wearer to reach each of the first and second microphones in each hearing device of the pair of hearing devices when the hearing devices are worn by the wearer.

9. The pair of hearing devices of claim 8, wherein the voice detector is configured detect the voice of the wearer using coefficients of the digital adaptive filter of each hearing device of the pair of hearing devices.

10. The pair of hearing devices of claim 9, wherein the voice detector is configured to detect the voice of the wearer using an error signal produced by the digital adaptive filter of each hearing device of the pair of hearing devices.

11. The pair of hearing devices of claim 8, wherein the voice detector is configured to detect the voice of the wearer using an error signal produced by the digital adaptive filter of each hearing device of the pair of hearing devices.

12. The pair of hearing devices of claim 8, wherein the voice detector is configured to determine detect the voice of the wearer using a detection strength parameter of the output information from each hearing device of the pair of hearing devices, the detection strength parameter being a measure of likeliness of actual existence of the voice of wearer.

13. The pair of hearing devices of claim 8, wherein the voice detector is configured to detect the voice of the wearer using a weighted combination of the output information from both hearing devices of the pair of hearing devices.

14. A method for operating a first hearing device configured for being worn by a wearer of the first hearing device and a second hearing device, the method comprising:

receiving electrical signals from a first microphone and a second microphone of the first hearing device;

producing first output information indicative a voice of the wearer based on the received electrical signals using a voice detector including an adaptive filter in the first hearing device;

receiving second output information indicative the voice of the wearer wirelessly from the second hearing device, the second output information produced by another voice detector in the second hearing device; and

detecting the voice of the wearer by the first hearing device using the first output information and the second output information.

15. The method of claim 14, comprising positioning the first and second microphones to provide a time difference for the voice of the wearer to reach each of the first and second microphones when the first and second hearing devices are worn by the wearer.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein producing the first output information comprises producing the first output information using coefficients of the adaptive filter.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein producing the first output information comprises producing the first output information using an error signal produced by the adaptive filter.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein producing the first output information comprises producing the first output information using an error signal produced by the adaptive filter.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein detecting the voice of the wearer comprises detecting the voice of the wearer using a first detection strength parameter of the first output information and a right detection strength parameter of the second output information, the first and second detection strength parameters each being a measure of likeliness of actual existence of the voice of wearer.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein detecting the voice of the wearer comprises detecting the voice of the wearer using a weighted combination of the first output information and the second output information.