Sonova Ag

Sonova

Xavier Gigandet

Amre El-Hoiydi

Yves Oesch

Timothée Jost

Jean-Louis Durrieu

Benjamin Heldner

Samuel Bucher

Hannes Wuethrich

Markus Hofbauer

Ives Oesch

There is provided a method for streaming a multichannel audio signal comprising a first channel (L) and a second channel (R) from an audio source device to a binaural hearing system comprising a first hearing device worn at first ear of a user and a second hearing device worn at a second ear of the user.

Method and system for streaming a multichannel audio signal to a binaural hearing system

The disclosure relates to a method of operating a hearing system comprising an ear unit wearable at an ear of a user, an output transducer included in the ear unit, and a detector arrangement comprising a plurality of spatially separated sound detectors and configured to provide audio data representative of the detected sound.

Hearing system and method of its operation for providing audio data with directivity

An illustrative stereo rendering system obtains a contradirectional audio input signal generated by a microphone assembly having a plurality of microphone elements. The contradirectional audio input signal implements a contradirectional polar pattern oriented with respect to a listener. The system also obtains an array of multidirectional audio input signals generated by the microphone assembly. The array of multidirectional audio input signals implements different unidirectional polar patterns that are collectively omnidirectional in a horizontal plane. The system generates a weighted audio input signal by mixing the array of multidirectional audio input signals in accordance with respective weight values assigned to each multidirectional audio input signal. The system then generates, based on the contradirectional audio input signal and the weighted audio input signal, a stereo audio output signal for presentation to the listener. Corresponding systems and methods are also disclosed.

Stereo rendering systems and methods for a microphone assembly with dynamic tracking

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

This invention relates to a method of managing adaptive feedback cancellation in a hearing device comprising at least a microphone (); a receiver (); and a signal processing circuitry, configured to receive from said microphone () an input signal (X, X, X) and to provide said receiver () with an output signal (Y, U, U). An external acoustic feedback path () defined by feedback sound (fb) traveling from the receiver () to the microphone () is represented by an external feedback path transfer function (). The signal processing unit comprises at least a gain unit (); a feedback canceller unit () comprising an adaptive filter element () configured to adaptively accommodate changes in said external acoustic feedback path transfer function (); and a frequency shift unit () configured to stabilize an adaptation of the feedback canceler unit (). The method according to the present invention comprises the steps of: estimating the external acoustic feedback path transfer function () by modeling/deriving a first estimated feedback path transfer function () to reflect the external acoustic feedback path transfer function (), by said feedback canceler unit (); compensating the input signal of the hearing device (X), based on the first estimated feedback path transfer function (), thereby generating a compensated input signal (X); providing at least part of the signal processing unit with the compensated input signal (X). The method further comprises the steps of: generating a probe signal (W), by an adaptation control block (); injecting the probe signal (W) into the output signal (Y) of the hearing device and letting the probe signal (W) be fed back to the microphone () through the external acoustic feedback path (); modeling/deriving at least a reference estimated feedback path transfer function (), based on a relation between the input signal (X) and the probe signal (w); comparing said at least a reference estimated feedback path transfer function () with said first estimated feedback path transfer function (), by a comparison unit () of said adaptation control block (); and controlling the adaptive filter element () and the frequency shift unit () based on a comparison between such at least a reference estimated feedback path transfer function () and the first estimated feedback path transfer function ().

Method of managing adaptive feedback cancellation in hearing devices and hearing devices configured to carry out such method

An analysis filter bank decomposes a microphone signal into sub-band signals, a gain unit applies a frequency-dependent gain to the sub-band signals, and a synthesis filter bank converts the amplified sub-band signals into a signal, which is then output by a receiver. A first adaptive filter of a feedback canceller provides feedback compensation signals adapted to compensate acoustic feedback from the receiver to the microphone, whereby the feedback compensation signals are subtracted from corresponding signals from the sub-band signals. A second adaptive filter of the feedback canceller estimates cross-frequency signal components resulting from aliasing of signal components from one sub-band into one or more neighboring sub-bands caused by non-ideal sub-band signal decomposition in the analysis filter bank with overlapping sub-bands. Thereby, the first adaptive filter is adapted in dependence of the estimated cross-frequency signal components.

Growing community of inventors

Cousset, Switzerland

Xavier Gigandet