Bernafon Ag

Sarah Bostock

Bernhard Künzle

Jesko Lamm

Lukas Maurer

Michael Ernst

A hearing aid system and a method of estimating ambient noise in a listening device includes an input transducer and an output transducer, an electrical forward path between the input transducer and the output transducer providing a forward gain, an electrical feedback path comprising an adaptive filter for estimating the acoustic feedback gain from the output transducer to the input transducer. A method determines the quality of a critical gain measurement for a listening device. The method comprises a) monitoring the energy of the first-difference of the filter coefficients of the adaptive filter over time and b) applying a predefined threshold criterion to the change in energy content from one time instance to another to determine an acceptable impact of the ambient noise. This technique may e.g. be used for the fitting of hearing instruments where background noise is variable.

Method for monitoring the influence of ambient noise on stochastic gradient algorithms during identification of linear time-invariant systems

The invention relates to a hearing aid system comprising an input transducer for converting an input sound signal comprising an information signal part of a known waveform and a background noise part to an electrical analogue input signal, optionally an A/D converter for converting the electrical input signal to a digital input signal. The invention further relates to a method of making a critical gain measurement. The object of the present invention is to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of a signal to be measured or detected in a hearing instrument compared to prior art solutions. The problem is solved in that a matched filter receiving said analogue or digital input signal and optimized to improve the identification of the information signal part from the noisy input signal. An advantage of the invention is that it provides an alternative scheme for improving signal to noise ratio of a hearing aid. The invention may e.g. be used for the customization of hearing aid parameters in cooperation with fitting software and/or for improving signal to noise ratio of a detected or measured signal.

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Berne, Switzerland

Sarah Bostock