Chromatic Inc.

Fortell Research Inc.

Nicholas Morris

Andrew J Casper

Igor Lovchinsky

Matthew De Jonge

Jonathan Macoskey

Philip Meyers, Iv

Israel Malkin

Nathan Agmon

An ear-worn device includes two or more microphones and noise reduction circuitry including neural network circuitry. The neural network circuitry is configured to: receive multiple audio signals wherein at least two of the multiple audio signals each originate from a different one of the two or more microphones and/or at least one of the multiple audio signals is a beamformed audio signal originating from the two or more microphones; and implement one or more neural network layers trained to perform background noise modification and spatial focusing based on the multiple audio signals, such that the neural network circuitry generates, based on the multiple audio signals, one or more neural network outputs. The noise reduction circuitry is configured to output, based on the one or more neural network outputs, an output audio signal comprising a background noise-modified and spatially-focused version of a first audio signal of the multiple audio signals.

Ear-worn device with neural network-based noise modification and/or spatial focusing

An ear-worn device may include two or more microphones configured to generate time-domain audio signals, each of the two or more microphones configured to generate one of the time-domain audio signals; processing circuitry comprising analog processing circuitry, digital processing circuitry, beamforming circuitry, and short-time Fourier transformation (STFT) circuitry, the processing circuitry configured to generate, from the time-domain audio signals, one or more frequency-domain non-beamformed audio signals and one or more frequency-domain beamformed signals; and enhancement circuitry comprising neural network circuitry configured to receive multiple frequency-domain input audio signals originating from the one or more frequency-domain non-beamformed audio signals and the one or more frequency-domain beamformed signals, and implement a single neural network trained to generate, based on the multiple frequency-domain input audio signals, a noise-reduced and spatially-focused output audio signal or an output for generating a noise-reduced and spatially-focused output audio signal.

Ear-worn device with neural network for noise reduction and/or spatial focusing using multiple input audio signals

A hearing aid may include a neural network chip having tiles arranged in an array, each tile including memory, 16-128 multiplier-accumulator circuits (MACs), and routing circuitry. The memory of each tile may be configured to store a portion of elements of a matrix A comprising weights of a recurrent neural network. Each tile may be configured to receive and store elements of an activation vector X, and all tiles in a column of the array may be configured to receive the same elements of X. The plurality of tiles may be configured to perform a matrix-vector multiplication A*X by performing multiply-and-accumulate sub-operations in parallel among the plurality of tiles. The routing circuitry from the tiles in each respective row of tiles may be configured to combine results of the multiply-and-accumulate sub-operations.

Neural network chip for ear-worn device

An ear-worn device is provided that operates to isolate and individually treat the received speech of a target speaker or multiple target speakers from an audio input signal detected in a multi-speaker environment. The ear-worn device uses a machine learning model that receives a voice signature of each of one or more target speakers as input signals, to identify and isolate the component of the audio input signal attributable to the target speaker(s). Once isolated, the target speaker's speech may be enhanced, de-emphasized, or otherwise processed in a manner desired by the wearer of the ear-worn device. The wearer may use an external electronic device, e.g., a phone, to select one or more target speakers in a conversation and/or configure various settings associated with processing the speech on the ear-worn device.

System and method for enhancing speech of target speaker from audio signal in an ear-worn device using voice signatures

A hearing aid includes neural network circuitry configured to implement a neural network trained to separate a speech subsignal and a noise subsignal from an input audio signal, and digital processing circuitry. The digital processing circuitry includes a speech wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) pipeline and a noise WDRC pipeline. The speech WDRC pipeline is configured to apply a set of speech fitting curves to the speech subsignal based at least in part on the level of the speech subsignal. The noise WDRC pipeline is configured to apply a set of noise fitting curves to the noise subsignal based at least in part on the level of the noise subsignal. The set of speech fitting curves is different from the set of noise fitting curves.

Hearing loss amplification that amplifies speech and noise subsignals differently

An apparatus (e.g., an ear-worn device such as a hearing aid) includes neural network circuitry and control circuitry. The neural network circuitry is configured to implement a neural network system comprising at least a first neural network and a second neural network operating in parallel. The control circuitry is configured to control the neural network system to receive a first input signal, process the first input signal using the first neural network to produce a first output and using the second neural network to produce a second output, combine the first output and the second output, reset one or more states of the first neural network, and reset one or more states of the second neural network at a different time than when the one or more states of the first neural network are reset.

Hearing aids with parallel neural networks

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus to improve a user's understanding of speech in real-time conversations by processing the audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. The hearing device may be a headphone or hearing aid. In one embodiment, the disclosure relates to an apparatus to enhance incoming audio signal. The apparatus includes a controller to receive an incoming signal and provide a controller output signal; a neural network engine (NNE) circuitry in communication with the controller, the NNE circuitry activatable by the controller, the NNE circuitry configured to generate an NNE output signal from the controller output signal; and a digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry to receive one or more of controller output signal or the NNE circuitry output signal to thereby generate a processed signal; wherein the controller determines a processing path of the controller output signal through one of the DSP or the NNE circuitries as a function of one or more of predefined parameters, incoming signal characteristics and NNE circuitry feedback.

Method, apparatus and system for neural network hearing aid

Method, apparatus and system for neural network enabled hearing aid

According to some embodiments, an ear-worn device, e.g., a hearing aid, is provided that operates both as an over-the-counter device, as well as a prescription device. Features stored on the ear-worn device may be used to amplify, enhance, de-noise, or otherwise process audio signals in a manner desired by the user. Some features, or settings of those features, process audio signals in a manner that is unsafe for users with mild-to-moderate hearing loss and thus are disabled when the ear-worn device is operating as an over-the-counter device. Such features and settings may be enabled after the ear-worn device is fit to the user by a licensed professional.

Ear-worn device configured for over-the-counter and prescription use

According to some embodiments, an ear-worn device, e.g., a hearing aid, is provided that operates to enhance audio signals detected by the ear-worn device. In some embodiments, the ear-worn device includes a microphone, a processing circuit coupled to the microphone, and an output signal generator coupled to the processing circuit. In some embodiments, a method for enhancing audio signals includes: detecting an audio signal with the microphone; as the audio signal is being detected, dividing the audio signal into a plurality of segments; enhancing the detected audio signal with the processing circuit of the hearing aid; and outputting the enhanced audio signal with the output signal generator. In some embodiments, enhancing the detected audio signal includes processing one or more of the segments of the detected audio signal with a neural network engine (NNE) of the processing circuit to obtain an output for enhancing the detected audio signal.

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Brooklyn, NY, United States of America

Nicholas Morris