Siemens Audiologische Technik Gmbh

Siemens Medical Instruments Pte. Ltd.

Sivantos Pte. Ltd.

Siemens Hearing Instruments, Inc.

Georg-Erwin Arndt

Hartmut Ritter

Tom Weidner

Anton Gebert

Gunter Sauer

Thomas Hanses

Frank Koch

Henning Puder

Torsten Niederdränk

Ulrich Kornagel

Harald Klemenz

Volkmar Hamacher

Jens Hain

Robert Bäuml

Thomas Fischer

Volker Gebhardt

Joachim Eggers

Andreas Tiefenau

Stefanie Müller

Adaption of signal processing for actively reducing occlusion in hearing apparatuses, and in particular in hearing aids, is to be automated further. For this purpose, a transducer transmission function, which is defined for the transmission path from the input of a receiver via the auditory canal to the output of a microphone, be subjected to an automatic plausibility check. An adjustable filter via which the microphone signal is fed back is only altered if the transducer transmission function is plausible according to a predefined criterion.

Method for actively reducing occlusion comprising plausibility check and corresponding hearing apparatus

A hearing device is provided with a microphone array having a plurality of microphones. The signals from the microphones can then be processed by an appropriate apparatus of the hearing device such that this results in a directivity of the microphone array. The apparatus must also be able to allow an omnidirectional directivity of the microphone array, i.e. a non-directional detection of sound. This is not always ensured in the case where one of the microphones in the microphone array is covered or aligned other than what is intended. An omnidirectional directivity of the microphone array is ensured in a hearing device of the invention. Here, the microphones are, for this purpose, connected to inputs of the apparatus via a coupling device, by way of which each of the microphones can be coupled to a plurality of inputs of the apparatus at the same time.

Hearing device and method for producing an omnidirectional directional characteristic

Sound from the receiver of a hearing device may be fed back to its microphones via acoustic feedback paths, which may cause undesirable whistling. It is particularly difficult to predict the creation of feedback in a microphone array with adjustable directional characteristic. This is because the stability of the system then is dependent on a directional parameter by way of which the directional characteristic is fixed. The invention enables feedback-free operation of such a hearing device. A prescribed stability condition is used to establish for which values of the directional parameter feedback-free operation is possible. The directional parameter is then restricted to these values during operation of the hearing device. As an alternative thereto, a value for a strength of a feedback effect is established for a current value of the directional parameter and the directional parameter or a control parameter for the purpose of feedback suppression is then set as a function of the established value.

Hearing device and method for setting the hearing device for feedback-reduced operation

A method is described for reduction of occlusion effects in an acoustic appliance which closes an auditory channel, wherein an audio signal in the transmission path of the acoustic appliance is processed by a signal processing unit and is emitted via an output transducer, which is arranged in the auditory channel, as an acoustic signal. A resultant sound signal is then detected by an auditory channel microphone and is supplied to a variable loop filter which is arranged in a feedback loop of an occlusion reduction unit for the acoustic appliance. The output signal from the loop filter is injected into the transmission path of the audio signal. The occlusion reduction unit is in this case controlled adaptively, with at least one signal from the transmission path of the audio signal and/or from the feedback loop being used to control the loop filter for the occlusion reduction unit.

Hearing aid having an occlusion reduction unit and method for occlusion reduction

The microphones used in hearing devices normally possess different characteristic lines that are to be adapted to one another. For this purpose, the amplitude of an output signal of a first microphone and the amplitude of an output signal of a second microphone are measured. The output signal of the first microphone is subsequently filtered dependent on both measured amplitudes, such that the difference between the two output signals is reduced. One of the two microphones hereby serves as a reference, and an absolute normalization can be foregone.

Circuit and method for adaptation of hearing device microphones

In a hearing aid, as well as in a method for the operation of a hearing aid having a microphone system in which different directional characteristics can be set, the tonal quality is improved, particularly in a quiet hearing environment, by the signal delay for at least one microphone signal being increased so as to increase the transfer function in the frequency response of the microphone system, thus also improving the signal-to-noise ratio, by decreasing the proportion of the microphone noise in the microphone output signal.

Hearing aid having an adjustable directional characteristic, and method for adjustment thereof

A feedback compensator for a hearing aid device has a filter arrangement that splits a signal path, to implement an adaptive feedback compensation with only one buffer memory, two splitting nodes, and two addition nodes. The feedback compensation ensues only in the feedback-susceptible frequency range of the input signal. In addition to the filtering of the input signal, it is advantageous to feed to the adaptive feedback compensation filter a bandwidth-limited signal that is taken from the amplified output signal.

Feedback compensation device and method, and hearing aid device employing same

In a hearing aid having an oscillation detector and a method for establishing the presence of oscillations in a hearing aid, sinusoidal input signals of the microphone can be detected, and so oscillations that are present can also be detected. To this end, the number of digitized sample values in consecutive periods of the input signal is determined, and a long-term average value Nand a short-term average value Nare formed from these numbers. When Nand Nare essentially identical, the presence of oscillations is detected.

Hearing aid with an oscillation detector, and method for detecting feedback in a hearing aid

In a hearing aid and method for automatically switching to a telephone mode, for automatically detecting a telephone situation for the wearer given a binaural supply, the difference between the levels of the input signals of the two hearing devices is measured and compared with at least one threshold value. If the difference in levels drops below or exceeds the threshold value, the respective hearing device is switched to the telephone mode.

Hearing aid and operating method for automatically switching to a telephone mode

In a method for adapting a hearing aid, and a hearing aid arrangement for improving the directivity of a hearing aid with a number of microphones that are connected to one another for generating a directional characteristic, the hearing aid is exposed to acoustic waves in a room for precision measuring while the user is wearing it, and the directional characteristic is registered. The filter parameters that arise therefrom are supplied to parameterizable filters in the hearing aid that are connected downstream from the microphones, and the desired ideal directional characteristic can be approximated taking the individual conditions into account when the hearing aid is worn.

Method and adapting a hearing aid, and hearing aid with a directional microphone arrangement for implementing the method

In a method for producing a directional microphone characteristic and hearing aid device having a directional microphone characteristic, high-pass filters following two omnidirectional microphones are matched as to their limit frequencies for amplitude response and/or phase response of the two microphones. The limit frequency of the high-pass filter following one microphone is matched to the limit frequency of the other microphone.

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Obermichelbach, Germany

Georg-Erwin Arndt