Hearing assistance system

Abstract

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.