Sonova Ag

Phonak Ag

Timothée Jost

Amre El-Hoiydi

Marc Secall

Rainer Platz

Evert Dijkstra

Christoph Hans Schmid

Hilmar Meier

Yves Oesch

Francois Marquis

Xavier Gigandet

Alessandro Gallo

Claude Richard

Sebastian Stenzel

William Ballande

Hans Mülder

Till Schmalmack

Doninique Aparicio

Jordi Hidalgo

William Balande

Dominique Aparicio

Felix Goldbeck

Provided is an audio transmission method between at least two audio communication systems including a transmitting audio communication system with first and second audio transmitting devices and a receiving audio communication system with at least one audio receiving device. The method includes transmitting a first wireless audio stream, via a first wireless audio link, by the first audio transmitting device and a second wireless audio stream, via a second wireless audio link, by the second audio transmitting device; and selecting, by the at least one audio receiving device, one of the first wireless audio stream or the second wireless audio stream based on quality parameters of the first audio link and the second wireless audio link.

Dual wireless audio streams transmission allowing for spatial diversity or own voice pickup (OVPU)

A microphone assembly includes: at least three microphones for capturing audio signals from the user's voice, the microphones defining a microphone plane; an acceleration sensor for sensing gravitational acceleration in at least two orthogonal dimensions so as to determine a direction of gravity; a beamformer unit for processing the captured audio signals in a manner so as to create a plurality of N acoustic beams, a unit for selecting a subgroup of M acoustic beams from the N the acoustic beams; an audio signal processing unit having M independent channels for producing an output audio signal for each of the M acoustic beams; a unit for estimating the speech quality of the audio signal in each of the channels; and an output unit for selecting the signal of the channel with the highest estimated speech quality as the output signal of the microphone assembly.

Microphone assembly

There is provided a system for providing hearing assistance to a user, comprising: a table microphone unit () for capturing audio signals from a speaker's voice, comprising a microphone arrangement () comprising at least three microphones (M, M, M) arranged in a non-linear manner, a beamformer unit () comprising a plurality of beamformers (BF, BF, . . . ), wherein each beamformer is configured to generate an acoustic beam (B, B, . . . ) by beamforming processing of audio signals captured by a subset of the microphones in such a manner that the acoustic beam has a fixed direction, an audio signal analyzer unit () for analyzing the beams in order to determine at least one acoustic parameter for each acoustic beam, a beam selection unit () for selecting one of the acoustic beams as the presently active beam based on the values of the at least one acoustic parameter, an output unit () for providing an acoustic output stream (), wherein the output unit is configured to provide, during stationary phases of the beam selection, the presently active beam as the output stream, and to provide, during a transition period starting upon switching of the beam selection from a first beam to a second beam, a mixture of the first and second beam with a time-variable weighting of the first and second beam as the output stream so as to enable a smooth transition from the first beam to the second beam during the transition period, a transmission unit () for transmitting an audio signal corresponding to the output stream via a wireless link (); and a hearing assistance device () to be worn by the user, comprising a receiver unit () for receiving audio signals transmitted from the transmitter of the table microphone unit and an output transducer () for stimulation of the user's hearing according to the received audio signals.

Hearing assistance system

Systems, methods and software for sample rate conversion with unknown input and output clocks are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for an asynchronous transfer of audio data includes: receiving the audio data by an antenna of a receiver (RX); storing the audio data in an input buffer of the RX; and receiving data words from the input buffer by a sample rate converter (SRC). The consecutive data words are received from the input buffer at an adjustable period T. The method further includes tracking a filling level of the input buffer; and based on the filling level of the input buffer, adjusting the adjustable period T. When the filling level of the input buffer is below the target level of the input buffer, the adjustable period T is increased. When the filling level of the input buffer is above the target level of the input buffer, the adjustable period T is decreased.

Method for apparatus for sample rate conversion with unknown input and output clocks

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

A system for providing sound to at least one user has at least one audio signal source, a transmission unit with a digital transmitter audio data packets from the audio signal source via a wireless digital audio link; at least one receiver unit having at least one digital receiver; and a hearing stimulator responsive to audio signals from the receiver unit. The transmission unit encodes the audio signal as audio data blocks distributed onto at least two audio data packets, one of which is a low-quality packet, and one of which is a high quality packet only a low-quality version of the audio signal being retrievable from the low-quality packets, and a high-quality version of the audio signal being retrievable from both the low-quality packets and the high-quality packets. The low-quality packets and the high-quality packets are transmitted in respective dedicated slots of a multiple access protocol frame.

Wireless sound transmission and method

A hearing assistance system and method for wireless RF audio signal transmission from at least one audio signal source to ear level receivers, wherein a close-to-natural hearing impression is to be achieved. At least one parameter of the RF signal as received from a transmission unit at a respective receiver unit to create left ear RF signal measurement data and right ear RF signal measurement data, respectively. The angular localization of each transmission unit is obtained by comparing, for each transmission unit, the left ear RF signal measurement data and the right ear RF signal measurement data. The audio signals are processed and distributed according to the estimated angular localization of each transmission unit in a manner so that the angular localization impression of the audio signals from each transmission unit as perceived by the user corresponds to the estimated angular localization of the respective transmission unit.

Hearing assistance system and method

A system for providing hearing assistance to at least one user, having: at least one audio signal source; a first transmission unit with a digital transmitter for applying a digital modulation to the audio signals and to transmit the audio signals via a digital audio link; a second transmission unit with a digital receiver for receiving the audio signals transmitted via the digital audio link and an analog transmitter for applying an analog modulation to the received audio signals and to transmit the audio signals via an analog audio link; at least one first receiver unit having a digital receiver for receiving signals from the digital transmitter and at least one second receiver unit with an analog receiver for receiving signals from the analog transmitter; and a device for stimulating the hearing of a user according to audio signals supplied from the first and second receiver units.

A system for providing hearing assistance to at least one user, having: at least one audio signal source () for providing audio signals; a transmission unit () for wireless transmission of audio signals; at least one receiver unit () for wireless reception of audio signals from the transmission unit; a device () for stimulating the hearing of the user according to audio signals supplied from the at least one receiver unit. The transmission unit has both an analog transmitter () for applying an analog modulation scheme and a digital transmitter () for applying a digital modulation scheme in order to transmit the audio signals from the audio signal source () simultaneously via an analog audio link () and a digital audio link ().

Growing community of inventors

Auvernier, Switzerland

Timothée Jost