H04R25/407

Systems and methods for transmitting audio signals with varying delays

A hearing aid and related systems and methods are disclosed. In one implementation, a system may comprise a microphone and a processor. The processor may be configured to receive an original audio signal representative of sounds captured by the microphone; determine that the original audio signal includes a voice of the user; process the original audio signal according to a first processing scheme to generate a first processed audio signal; transmit the first processed audio signal to a hearing interface device after a first time delay associated with the first processing scheme; determine that the original audio signal includes an additional sound; process the original audio signal according to a second processing scheme to generate a second processed audio signal; and transmit the second processed audio signal to the hearing interface device after a second time delay associated with the second processing scheme.

Smart hearing device for distinguishing natural language or non-natural language, artificial intelligence hearing system, and method thereof
11736871 · 2023-08-22 · ·

The inventive concept relates to a smart hearing device for providing a control parameter and feedback for a natural language or a non-natural language determined by analyzing sound data, which includes a receiving unit that receives sound data of a voice signal and a noise signal from a first microphone and a second microphone being formed at one side, a determination unit that compares digital flow of the sound data with a previously stored graph pattern to determine a natural language or a non-natural language for the sound data, a processing unit that matches similar data for the determined natural language or non-natural language, based on a database including a natural language area and a non-natural language area, and a providing unit that provides a user with a one-sided sound converted by setting a control parameter in a natural language or a non-natural language specified according to the matched similar data.

Method of adaptive mixing of uncorrelated or correlated noisy signals, and a hearing device

A hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, adapted for being located at or in an ear, or to be fully or partially implanted in the head, of a user, the hearing device comprises a) an input unit providing at least two input audio data streams, each comprising a mixture of a target signal component from a target sound source and a noise component from one or more noise sources; b) a mixing processor for receiving said at least two input audio data streams, and for mixing said at least two input audio data streams, or processed versions thereof, and for providing a processed input signal based thereon; c) an output unit providing output stimuli perceivable to the user as sound based on said processed input signal or a processed version thereof. The processor is configured to process said noise component of said at least two input audio data streams, or processed versions thereof in order to reduce or avoid artefacts in said processed input signal due to said mixing. A method of operating a hearing device is further disclosed. The invention may e.g. be used in hearing aids, e.g. hearing aids configured to communicate with another device, e.g. binaural hearing aid systems.

Portable device comprising a directional system

A sound capture device configured to be worn by a person and/or to be located on a surface is configured to pick up target sound from a target sound source s. The sound capture device comprises a) an input unit providing a multitude of electric input signals, each comprising a target signal component and a noise signal component; b) a directional noise reduction system comprising a beamformer unit coupled to said multitude of input signals and configured to provide an estimate of the target sound s. The beamformer unit comprises b1) target maintaining, reference beamformer providing a current reference signal; and b2) a target cancelling beamformer providing a current target cancelling sign. The directional noise reduction system is configured to operate in at least two modes in dependence of a mode control signal, 1) in a directional mode and 2) in a non-directional, omni-directional mode. The sound capture device further comprises c) antenna and transceiver circuitry for establishing an audio link to another device, and to transmit said estimate of the target sound s to said another device, and d) a mode controller for determining said mode control signal in dependence of said current reference signal and said current target cancelling signal. A method of operating a sound capture device is further disclosed.

Hearing device comprising a recurrent neural network and a method of processing an audio signal

A hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid or a headset, configured to be worn by a user at or in an ear or to be fully or partially implanted in the head at an ear of the user comprises an input unit for providing at least one electric input signal in a time-frequency representation and a signal processor comprising a neural network configured to provide respective gain values G(k,t) in said time-frequency representation for reducing noise components in said at least one electric input signal. The neural network comprises at least one layer defined as a modified gated recurrent unit, termed Peak GRU, comprising memory in the form of a hidden state vector h, and wherein an output vector o is provided by said Peak GRU in dependence of an input vector x and said hidden state vector h, wherein an output o(j,t) of the Peak GRU at a given time step t is stored as said hidden state h(j,t) and used in the calculation of the output o(j,t+1) in the next time step t+1. The signal processor is configured to provide that the number of updated channels among N.sub.ch processing channels of the Peak GRU for said input vector x(t) and said hidden state vector h(t−1) at said given time instance t is limited to a number of peak values N.sub.p, where N.sub.p is smaller than N.sub.ch. A method of operating a hearing device is further disclosed.

BILATERAL HEARING AID SYSTEM AND METHOD OF ENHANCING SPEECH OF ONE OR MORE DESIRED SPEAKERS
20220141604 · 2022-05-05 · ·

The present disclosure relates to binaural hearing aid systems and methods of enhancing speech of one or more desired speakers in a listening room using indoor positioning sensors and systems.

Hearing device comprising a microphone adapted to be located at or in the ear canal of a user

A hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, configured to be worn by a user, comprises a) two or more input transducers (e.g. microphones) wherein said two or more input transducers during use of the hearing device are arranged with a distance between them; b) a directional system comprising a directional algorithm configured to provide a directional pattern in dependence of said distance. The hearing device is configured to estimate a current value of said distance, or an equivalent acoustic delay, or beamformer weights of said directional system, thereby the directional performance can be optimized to the individual user.

HEARING DEVICE ADAPTED TO PROVIDE AN ESTIMATE OF A USER'S OWN VOICE
20220141598 · 2022-05-05 · ·

A hearing device adapted to be worn by a user and for picking up sound containing the user's own voice is provided. The hearing device includes an input unit having first and second input transducers for converting sound to first and second electric input signals, respectively, representing the sound. The hearing device is configured to provide that the first and second input transducers are located on the user so that the user experiences first and second, acoustically different, acoustic environments, respectively, when the user wears the hearing device. The first acoustic environment may be defined as an environment where the own voice signal primarily originates from vibrating parts of the bones and skin or tissue. The second acoustic environment may be defined as an environment where the own voice signal primarily originates from the user's mouth or nose and is transmitted through air from said mouth or nose to the second input transducer(s). A method of operating a hearing device is further disclosed.

Systems and Methods for Data Exchange Between Binaural Hearing Devices

An exemplary system comprises a first and second hearing device associated with a first and second ear of a user, respectively. The first hearing device is configured to detect a first audio signal representative of audio content, generate a first intermediate signal representation (ISR) corresponding to the first audio signal, the first ISR comprising a sparsely-encoded non-audio signal having a complexity measure that is below a threshold, and transmit the first ISR to the second hearing device. The second hearing device is configured to detect a second audio signal representative of the audio content, generate a second ISR corresponding to the second audio signal, and transmit the second ISR to the first hearing device. The first hearing device is further configured to generate, based on the first and second ISRs, an output audio signal, and provide the output audio signal to the first ear of the user.

Earphone, earphone system, and method in earphone system
11323803 · 2022-05-03 · ·

To further improve the quality of sound acquired by an ear head. An earphone according to the present disclosure is an earphone that is one of earphones configuring an ear headset, the earphone including a sound acquisition unit configured to acquire sound data, a communication unit configured to receive sound data from the other earphone by wireless communication, and a sound quality improvement processing unit configured to perform processing of improving sound quality of the sound data acquired by the sound acquisition unit and the sound data received from the other earphone. With the configuration, the quality of a sound acquired by the ear head can be further improved.