Starkey Laboratories, Inc.

Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Zhang, Tao

Woods, William S.

Merk, Ivo Leon Diane Marie

Mckinney, Martin

Martin McKinney

Tao Zhang

Thomas Howard Burns

Buye Xu

Karrie Recker

David Alan Fabry

Yezihalem Mesfin

Eric Durant

Jinjun Xiao

Jumana Harianawala

Srikanth Vishnubhotla

Kyle Walsh

Matthew D Kleffner

Ke Zhou

Dominic Perz

Dean G Meyer

Jaymin Baroda

Bernardus Hendrikus Wilhelmus Hendriks

Ivo Merks

Kelly R Fitz

William S Woods

Arthur Salvetti

Christopher Larry Howes

Henning Schepker

Adrien Desjardins

Brantly Sturgeon

JuanJuan Xiang

Masahiro Sunohara

Piero Iared Rivera Benois

Ivo Leon Diane Marie Merk

Juan Juan Xiang

Disclosed herein, among other things, are systems and methods for active noise cancellation (ANC) for hearing device applications. A method includes estimating a first sound pressure on an ear drum of a wearer of the hearing device caused by a hearing processing signal, estimating a second sound pressure on the ear drum of the wearer of the hearing device caused by a leakage path of the hearing device, and computing a ratio of the first sound pressure and the second sound pressure to predict a comb-filtering effect for the hearing device. The method also includes computing an ANC controller using the computed ratio in one or more frequency ranges, and canceling leaked sound into an ear canal of the wearer for the hearing device in the one or more frequency ranges using the ANC controller.

Active noise control for sound quality in hearing devices

A set of one or more processing circuits obtains eye movement-related eardrum oscillation (EMREO)-related measurements from one or more EMREO sensors of a hearing instrument. The EMREO sensors are located in an ear canal of a user of the hearing instrument and are configured to detect environmental signals of EMREOs of an eardrum of the user of the hearing instrument. The one or more processing circuits may perform an action based on the EMREO-related measurements.

Detecting user's eye movement using sensors in hearing instruments

In an audio signal, one or more processing circuits recognize spoken content in a user's own speech signal using speech recognition and natural language understanding. The spoken content describes a listening difficulty of the user. The one or more processing circuits generate, based on the spoken content, one or more actions for hearing devices and feedback for the user. The one or more actions attempt to resolve the listening difficulty. Additionally, the one or more processing circuits convert the user feedback to verbal feedback using speech synthesis and transmit the one or more actions and the verbal feedback to the hearing devices via a body-worn device. The hearing devices are configured to perform the one or more actions and play back the verbal feedback to the user.

Interactive system for hearing devices

An ear-worn electronic device comprises a microphone arrangement configured to sense sound in an acoustic environment, an acoustic transducer, and a non-volatile memory configured to store parameter value sets each associated with a different acoustic environment, at least one of which is associated with an acoustic environment with muffled speech. A control input of the device is configured to receive a control input signal produced by a user-actuatable control, a sensor or an external electronic device. A processor is configured to classify the acoustic environment as one with muffled speech using the sensed sound and, in response to a signal received from the control input, apply one or more of the parameter value sets appropriate for the classification to enhance intelligibility of muffled speech.

Ear-worn electronic device employing acoustic environment adaptation for muffled speech

An ear-worn electronic device comprises a microphone configured to sense sound in an acoustic environment, an acoustic transducer, and a non-volatile memory configured to store a plurality of parameter value sets, each of the parameter value sets associated with a different acoustic environment. A control input is configured to receive a control input signal produced by at least one of a user-actuatable control of the ear-worn electronic device and an external electronic device communicatively coupled to the ear-worn electronic device in response to a user action. A processor is configured to classify the acoustic environment using the sensed sound and determine a listening intent preference of the user. The processor is configured to apply, in response to the control input signal, one of the parameter value sets appropriate for the classification and the listening intent preference of the user.

Ear-worn electronic device employing user-initiated acoustic environment adaptation

A hearing aid includes a sound classification module to classify environmental sound sensed by a microphone. The sound classification module executes an advanced sound classification algorithm. The hearing aid then processes the sound according to the classification.

Sound classification system for hearing aids

Disclosed herein, among other things, are apparatus and methods for noise characterization and attenuation for hearing assistance devices. In various embodiments, a method of operating a hearing assistance device includes receiving an audio signal using a microphone of the hearing assistance device and identifying a transient in the audio signal. Linear predictive coding (LPC) is used to isolate speech segments and non-speech segments of the transient and fluctuating noise, and the non-speech segments of the transient and fluctuating noise are attenuated to reduce annoyance of the noise and maintain audibility of perceptually important transients in speech.

Noise characterization and attenuation using linear predictive coding

The signal processing functions of a hearing aid as described above necessarily cause some delay between the time the audio signal is received by the microphone or wireless receiver and the time that the audio is actually produced by the output transducer. In some situations, signal processing incorporating longer delays may be better able to improve signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or other functional parameters for a hearing aid wearer, but a balance should be struck between these positive effects of delay and other negative effects. The techniques described herein address the problem of balancing the positive and negative effects of delay.

Techniques for increasing processing capability in hear aids

Disclosed herein, among other things, are apparatus and methods for annoyance perception and modeling for hearing-impaired listeners. One aspect of the present subject matter includes a method for improving noise cancellation for a wearer of a hearing assistance device having an adaptive filter. In various embodiments, the method includes calculating an annoyance measure or other perceptual measure based on a residual signal in an ear of the wearer, the wearer's hearing loss, and the wearer's preference. A spectral weighting function is estimated based on a ratio of the annoyance measure or other perceptual measure and spectral energy. The spectral weighting function is incorporated into a cost function for an update of the adaptive filter. The method includes minimizing the annoyance or other perceptual measure based cost function to achieve perceptually motivated adaptive noise cancellation, in various embodiments.

Methods and apparatus for reducing ambient noise based on annoyance perception and modeling for hearing-impaired listeners

The present invention relates to an examination apparatus for providing information about an object and a method for providing information about an object of interest. In order to improve the visual reception of information relating to the object, an examination apparatus is provided that comprises an examination arrangement and a control unit with at least a first interface and a second interface. The examination arrangement is adapted to detect object data from at least one region of interest of an object and to provide the object data to the control unit. Further, the control unit is adapted to compute object data into object information and to transform at least a part of the object information into image data (). Further, the control unit is arranged to extract pre-determined indicative data from the object information and to transform the indicative data into graphical advisory data (). The first interface is configured such to provide the image data to a display unit () in order to display the image data () to the user. The second interface is configured such to provide a signal for an ambient advice display arrangement in order to provide the graphical advisory data () to the user.

Examination apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Minneapolis, MN, United States of America

Martin McKinney