Phonak Ag

Sonova Ag

Phonak Communications Ag

Francois Marquis

Yacine Azmi

Amre El-Hoiydi

Evert Dijkstra

Samuel Harsch

Francois Callias

Stefan Haenggi

Tim Jost

Rainer Platz

Timothée Jost

Giuseppina Biundo Lotito

Benjamin Heldner

Hans-Ueli Röck

Roman Arnet

Hans Mülder

Hans Mulder

Fabian Nater

David Fabry

There is provided a multi-talker acoustic network system for providing hearing assistance to a user, comprising at least two table microphone units () for capturing audio signals from a speaker's voice, each comprising a microphone arrangement () having an omnidirectional characteristic, a VAD () for detecting voice activity of the microphone arrangement and a transmitter () for transmitting the captured audio signals via a wireless audio link (), a control unit () for selecting one of tire table microphone units as the presently active microphone unit, wherein the control unit is configured to select, in case that at a time only for one of the table microphone units voice activity is detected, that one of the table microphone units as the presently active microphone unit, and to select, in case that at a time for more than one of the table microphone units voice activity is detected, at least for a certain time period that one of the table microphone units as the presently active microphone unit which has detected the voice activity first as the presently active microphone unit, wherein the system is configured to maintain the selection of the presently active microphone unit with a release time, and a hearing assistance device () to be worn by the user, comprising a receiver unit () for receiving audio signals captured by the presently active microphone unit and an output transducer () for stimulation of the user's hearing according to the received audio signals, wherein the system is configured to prevent audio signals of the table microphone unit(s) not being the presently active microphone unit from being supplied to the output transducer.

Hearing assistance system in a multi-talker acoustic network

Method for providing hearing assistance to a user by capturing audio signals with a microphone arrangement of a transmission unit; analyzing, by a voice activity detector of the transmission unit, the captured audio signals to judge whether a voice is present close to the microphone arrangement or not, analyzing, by a noise level estimator, the captured audio signals to estimate a surrounding noise level, processing the captured audio signals and transmitting, by a transceiver of the transmission unit, the processed audio signals via a wireless link to a receiver unit, and stimulating the user's hearing, by stimulating means at or in at least one user ear, according to the received audio signals, wherein the audio signals are processed via the wireless link by setting the gain applied to the audio signals according to the close voice/no close voice judgment of the voice activity detector and the estimated surrounding noise level.

Method and system for providing hearing assistance to a user

A system for speech enhancement in a room having a directional lapel microphone arrangement for capturing an audio signal from a speaker's voice; audio signal processor for generating a processed audio signal from the captured audio signal, and an adaptive beamformer unit for imparting directivity to the microphone arrangement provides maximum sensitivity towards the speaker's mouth and minimum sensitivity towards noise sources identified by the beamformer unit. A unit shifts the frequency of components of the audio signal above a frequency threshold value only. A feedback cancelling unit has an adaptive filter and a selection unit which automatically switches between a first mode causing the audio signal to by-pass the adaptive filter and a second mode in which the audio signal is filtered by the adaptive filter. A loudspeaker arrangement generates sound according to the processed audio signal and has plural loudspeakers arranged to form a directional loudspeaker array.

Speech enhancement system and method

A method for providing hearing assistance to a user by capturing input audio signals; estimating a speech level of the input audio signals and an ambient noise level of the input audio signals; applying a gain model to the input audio signals to transform the input audio signals into filtered audio signals, wherein, for a each ambient noise level, the gain varies as a function of the speech level and wherein the function varies according to the ambient noise level changing the ratio of the gain at low speech levels and at high speech levels as a function of the ambient noise level; wirelessly transmitting the filtered audio signals to a receiver unit forming or being connected to a user hearing stimulator, the stimulator being worn at or in the user's ear; and stimulating the user's hearing by the stimulator according to audio signals supplied by the receiver unit.

A hearing assistance system, having an audio signal source, a transmission unit for transmitting audio signals from the audio signal source via a wireless right ear audio link to a right ear unit and a receiver unit, and an arrangement for stimulating the user's right ear, and via a wireless left ear audio link, a left ear unit having a receiver unit and an arrangement for stimulating the user's left ear, an arrangement for exchanging audio signals received from the transmission unit between the right and left ear units, a device for detecting the quality of the right and left ear links and an arrangement for selecting, as a function of the detected qualities of the right and left ear links, as input to the stimulating arrangement, the audio signals received by the respective receiver unit from the transmission unit, the audio signals received via the audio signal exchanging arrangement, and/or mixtures thereof.

System and method for providing hearing assistance to a user

There is provided a method for providing hearing assistance to a user (), comprising: capturing audio signals by a microphone arrangement () comprising at least two spaced apart microphones (M, M); estimating the total energy contained in the voice spectrum of the audio signals captured at least one of the microphones; estimating the value of the direction of arrival of the captured audio signals by comparing the audio signals captured by at least two of the spaced apart microphones; judging whether a voice is present close to microphone arrangement by taking into account the estimated total energy contained in the voice spectrum of the captured audio signals and the estimated value of the direction of arrival of the captured audio signals; outputting a signal representative of said judgement; processing said captured audio signals according to said signal representative of said judgement; and stimulating the user's hearing, by stimulating means worn at or in at least one of the user's ears (), according to the processed audio signals.

A communication system having at least one user worn receiver unit for receiving audio signals via a wireless audio link connected to a stimulating means for stimulating the user's hearing according to audio signals received via the audio link; and a plurality of user worn transmission units and a microphone arrangement for capturing audio signals from the respective user's voice, an audio signal transmission portion for establishing the wireless audio link to at least one receiver unit to transmit the captured audio signals to the at least one receiver unit, an assistive digital link transceiver portion for establishing a bidirectional assistive digital link to at least one of the other transmission units and/or to an external command unit, and a control unit for controlling signal transmission of the transmission unit according to data exchanged with the control unit of the at least one of the other transmission units and/or the external command unit.

Wireless communication system

There is provided a method of operating a system for providing hearing assistance to a user (), comprising: capturing and processing audio signals by a transmission unit () and transmitting the audio signals from the transmission unit () via a wireless audio link to a receiver unit (); processing the received audio signals in the receiver unit (); stimulating the user's hearing, by stimulating means () worn at or in the user's ear, according to the audio signals from the receiver unit (); logging data by recording the values of at least one operation parameter of the transmission unit () and/or the receiver unit () as a function of time and/or by recording data derived from the values of at least one operation parameter of the transmission unit () and/or the receiver unit () as a function of time in the transmission unit (); and reading the logged data from the transmission unit ().

Hearing assistance system including data logging capability and method of operating the same

There is provided a method for operating a receiver unit () for receiving audio signals from a remote transmission unit () via a wireless audio link (), comprising: connecting an audio signal output () of the receiver unit () to an audio signal input () of a hearing instrument (A,B) comprising means () located at a user's ear or in the user's ear canal for stimulating the user's hearing according to the audio signals from the receiver unit () and a microphone arrangement (); measuring by means () included in the receiver unit () the impedance of the audio signal input () of the hearing instrument (A,B); and adjusting the impedance of the audio signal output () of the receiver unit () according to the measured impedance of the audio signal input () of the hearing instrument (A,B).

Method for operating a wireless audio signal receiver unit and system for providing hearing assistance to a user

There is provided a method for providing hearing assistance to a user (), comprising capturing audio signals by a microphone arrangement () and transmitting the audio signals by a transmission unit () via a wireless audio link () to a receiver unit (), analyzing the audio signals by a classification unit () prior to being transmitted in order to determine a present auditory scene category from a plurality of auditory scene categories, setting by a gain control unit () located in the receiver unit () the gain applied to the audio signals according to the present auditory scene category determined by the classification unit, and stimulating the user's hearing by stimulating means () worn at or in a user's ear according to the audio signals from the gain control unit ().

There is provided a method for adjusting a system for providing hearing assistance to a user (), the system comprising a microphone arrangement () for capturing audio signals, a transmission unit () for transmitting the audio signals via a wireless link () to a receiver unit () worn by the user, a gain control unit () located in the receiver unit for setting the gain applied to the audio signals, and means () worn at or in a user's ear () for stimulating the hearing of the user according to the audio signals from the receiver unit (), said method comprising: generating test audio signals, transmitting said test audio signals at a pre-defined level from the transmission unit via the wireless link to the receiver unit and stimulating the user's hearing with said test audio signals via said stimulating means; simultaneously transmitting gain control commands from the transmission unit to the gain control unit in order to selectively change the gain set by the gain control unit; repeating these steps until an optimum value of the gain set by the gain control unit has been determined; and transmitting a store command from the transmission unit to the receiver unit in order to store that determined optimum value of the gain.

Growing community of inventors

Corminboeuf, Switzerland

Francois Marquis