A beam generator, a beam generating method, and a chip are provided. The beam generator comprises a first channel, a second channel, and a signal merging module; the first channel comprises a first-channel filter, the first-channel filter is used to filter an input signal to obtain a first filtered signal; the first filtered signal comprises a desired signal; the second channel comprises: a second-channel blocking module, used to block the desired signal in the input signal to obtain a blocked signal; a compensation filter, connected to the second-channel blocking module for compensating for the blocked signal to obtain a second filtered signal; and an adaptive filter connected to the compensation filter for adaptively filtering the second filtered signal to obtain a third filtered signal; the signal merging module is for merging the first filtered signal and the third filtered signal to obtain an output signal.

Audio beamforming systems and methods that enable more precise control of lobes and nulls of an array microphone are provided. Optimized beamformer coefficients can be generated to result in beamformed signals associated with one or more lobes steered towards one or more desired sound locations and one or more nulls steered towards one or more undesired sound location. The performance of acoustic echo cancellation can be improved and enhanced.

A hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, is configured to be arranged at least partly on a user's head or at least partly implanted in a user's head. The hearing device comprises a) at least one input transducer for picking up an input sound signal from the environment and providing at least one electric input signal representing said input sound signal; b) a signal processor providing a processed signal based on one or more of said at least one electric input signals; c) an output unit for converting said processed signal or a signal originating therefrom to stimuli perceivable by said user as sound; d) a keyword spotting system comprising d1) a keyword detector configured to detect a limited number of predefined keywords or phrases or sounds in said at least one electric input signal or in a signal derived therefrom, and to provide a keyword indicator of whether or not, or with what probability, said keywords or phrases or sounds are detected, and d2) an own voice detector for providing an own voice indicator estimating whether or not, or with what probability, a given input sound signal originates from the voice of the user of the hearing device. The hearing device further comprises e) a controller configured to provide an own-voice-keyword indicator of whether or not or with what probability a given one of said keywords or phrases or sounds is currently detected and spoken by said user, said own-voice-keyword indicator being dependent on said keyword indicator and said own voice indicator.

Voice biometrics scoring is performed on received asynchronous audio outputs from microphones distributed at ad hoc locations to generate confidence scores that indicate a likelihood of an enrolled user speech utterance in the output, a subset of the outputs is selected based on the confidence scores, and the subset is spatially processed to provide audio output for voice application use. Alternatively, asynchronous spatially processed audio outputs and corresponding biometric identifiers are received from corresponding devices distributed at ad hoc locations, audio frames of the outputs are synchronized using the biometric identifiers, and the synchronized frames are coherently combined. Alternatively, uttered speech associated with respective ad hoc distributed devices is received and non-coherently combined to generate a final output of uttered speech. The uttered speech is recognized from respective spatially processed outputs generated by the respective devices using biometrics of talkers enrolled by the devices.

Systems and methods of providing improved directional noise suppression in an electronic device implement a technique that specifies a direction or speaker of interest, determines the directions corresponding to speakers not lying in the direction of interest, beam forms the reception pattern of the device microphone array to focus in the direction of interest and suppresses signals from the other directions, creating beam formed reception data. A spatial mask is generated as a function of direction relative to the direction of interest. The spatial mask emphasizes audio reception in the direction of interest and attenuates audio reception in the other directions. The beam formed reception data is then multiplied by the spatial mask to generate an audio signal with directional noise suppression.

A plurality of microphone signals can be captured with a plurality of microphones of the device. One or more echo dominant audio signals can be determined based on a pick-up beam directed towards one or more speakers of a playback device. Sound that is emitted from the one or more speakers and sensed by the plurality of microphones can be removed from plurality of microphone signals, by using the one or more echo dominant audio signals as a reference, resulting in clean audio.

A hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, is configured to be arranged at least partly on a user’s head or at least partly implanted in a user’s head. The hearing device comprises a) at least one input transducer for picking up an input sound signal from the environment and providing at least one electric input signal representing said input sound signal; b) a signal processor connected to the at least one input transducer, the signal processor being configured to analyze the electric input signal and to provide a transmit control signal in dependence thereof; c) a memory buffer, e.g. a cyclic buffer, for storing a current time segment of a certain duration of said at least one electric input signal, or a processed version thereof; and a transmitter for transmitting at least a part of said time segment, or a processed version thereof, to an external device in dependence of said transmit control signal.

An audio device is disclosed, the audio device comprising an interface, memory, and a processor, wherein the processor is configured according to any of the following: obtain a first microphone input signal and a second microphone input signal; process the first microphone input signal and the second microphone input signal for provision of an output audio signal; and output the output audio signal. Processing of the input signals includes determine a first set of covariance parameters and a second set of covariance parameters; determine a first beamforming; apply the first beamforming to the first microphone input signal and the second microphone input signal; determine a second beamforming; apply the second beamforming to the first microphone input signal and the second microphone input signal; and provide the output audio signal based on first beamforming output signal and/or second beamforming output signal.

An audio device comprising an interface, memory, and a processor is disclosed. A first microphone input signal and a second microphone input signal is processed for provision of an output audio signal; and output the output audio signal, wherein to process the microphone signals determine a first distractor indicator based on features associated with the input signals; determine a first distractor attenuation parameter based on the first distractor indicator; determine a second distractor indicator based on one or more features associated with the first microphone input signal and the second microphone input signal; determine a second distractor attenuation parameter based on the second distractor indicator; determine an attenuator gain based on the first distractor attenuation parameter and the second gain compensation parameter; and apply a noise suppression scheme to a first beamforming output signal according to the attenuator gain for provision of the output audio signal.

Techniques described herein include generating first audio signals representative of sounds emanating from an environment and captured with an array of microphones disposed within an ear-mountable listing device. A rotational position of the array of microphones is determined. A rotational correction is applied to the first audio signals to generate a second audio signal. The rotational correction is based at least in part upon the determined rotational position. A speaker of the ear-mountable listening device is driven with the second audio signal to output audio into an ear.