876results about "Hearing aids signal processing" patented technology

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus for processing audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. 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; 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 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.

A wearable device may be worn in an ear of a user. The wearable device may include a biometric sensor that collects biometric information from the ear, and an environmental sensor that collects environmental information from the ear. The wearable device may receive the biometric information from the biometric sensor, and the environmental information from the environmental sensor, and send biofeedback determined from the biometric information, and an environmental condition determined from the environmental information, wirelessly to a communication device. Other embodiments are disclosed.

The invention provides a sound processing method, system and device based on a hearing aid and a storage medium, and the method comprises the steps: collecting sound signals, including background noise and voice signals, of a hearing aid use environment in a large scale; the sound signals are preprocessed, abnormal values and missing values are processed, the abnormal values and the missing values are scaled into a unified scale, and the sound signals are divided into a training set and a test set; adjusting and optimizing parameters of the standard adaptive filtering model by using an improved gradient descent optimization algorithm, wherein the parameters comprise a filter order, a maximum number of iterations, an initial step length and a regularization coefficient; and inputting the test set into the optimized algorithm to realize optimization processing of the sound signal. According to the invention, the voice definition and the background noise suppression capability can be improved, and the use effect and the user experience of the hearing aid in a complex environment are improved.

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.

An audio system receives sounds from a local area with a set of sensors. The audio system analyzes the sounds to identify an amount of background noise in the environment. The audio system may also identify target sound in the environment, such as voice from a nearby speaker, to reinforce. The amount of background noise is then used to adaptively set a level of reinforcement for the target sound. In low-noise environments, the target sound may be minimally, or not reinforced, while in high-noise environments a reinforcement sound signal may be generated with the target sound so that a transducer array may generate reinforcing sounds for the target sound and increase its contrast with the noise in the environment. By applying the reinforcement dynamically, the system automatically adjusts for different sounds and environments.

A hearing aid system comprises a hearing aid, and a portable auxiliary device’ adapted to establish a communication link between them. The hearing aid comprises a microphone providing an electric input signal, a signal processor, and an output unit. The auxiliary device comprises a microphone providing an auxiliary electric input signal, and a user control interface allowing a user to initiate a specific calibration mode of operation of the hearing aid system. The signal processor of the hearing aid is configured to receive corresponding time segments of said electric input signal and said auxiliary electric input signal to provide an estimate of an acoustic transfer function from said microphone of said auxiliary device to said microphone of said hearing aid. A method of operating a hearing aid system is further disclosed. The invention may e.g. be used in various applications related to own voice detection and estimation.

An auditory neural interface device for sound perception by an individual that may be used as a hearing aid. The auditory neural interface device includes a receiver configured to receive sound signals, a processor operably connected to the receiver and configured to encode a received sound signal as a multi-channel neurostimulation signal, and a neurostimulation device operably connected to the processor and configured to apply the multi-channel neurostimulation signal to a neurostimulation electrode of the individual. The neurostimulation signal is configured to directly stimulate afferent sensory neurons of the central nervous system of the individual and thereby to elicit, for each channel of the neurostimulation signal, one or more non-auditory, preferably somatosensory, perceptions in a cortex area of the individual. Each channel of the neurostimulation signal is associated with a different non-auditory perception.

The invention discloses an artificial cochlea self-sound restoration method and an artificial cochlea sound processor. The artificial cochlea self-sound restoration method comprises the following steps: dividing digital signals acquired by a bone conduction microphone and an air conduction microphone into signal frames; converting the signal frame from an initial time domain signal to an initial frequency domain signal; judging whether the microphone signal is self sound or not; when the signals collected by the bone conduction microphone and the air conduction microphone are self-sound, after the frequency domain signal frame of the bone conduction microphone and the frequency domain signal frame of the air conduction microphone are superposed, a new frequency domain signal is converted into a new time domain signal, and a signal frame after self-sound restoration is obtained; the sound of an implanter is collected from two channels of air conduction and bone conduction and is mixed and output, so that the accuracy of sound collection is improved.

A system may include a first ear-worn device worn by a first wearer and a second ear-worn device worn by a second wearer, in which the first ear-worn device is configured to generate an audio signal based on sound from its environment, generate a speech portion of the audio signal using a neural network-based noise-reduction pipeline in the first ear-worn device, and transmit the speech portion of the audio signal to the second ear-worn device. The first ear-worn device may be configured to determine whether to transmit the speech portion of the audio signal to the second ear-worn device based on an own-voice heuristic. The second ear-worn device may be configured to generate an output audio signal by applying a first weight to the speech portion of the first ear-worn device's audio signal and a second weight to the speech portion of its own audio signal.

A system for hearing assistance includes an array of microphones, which are configured be mounted in proximity to a head of a user of the system and to output electrical signals in response to first acoustic waves that are incident on the microphones. A speaker is configured for mounting in proximity to an ear of the user and configured to output second acoustic waves in response to a drive signal applied to the speaker. Processing circuitry is configured to generate the drive signal by amplifying and filtering the electrical signals using a beamforming filter that emphasizes first sounds that impinge on the array of microphones within a selected angular range while suppressing second sounds that are spoken by the user.

Apparatuses, systems, and techniques are presented to reduce noise in audio. In at least one embodiment, one or more neural networks are used to determine a noise signal in one or more speech signals.

In accordance with a method for performing frequency subchannelization, a digital signal is received at an original sampling rate. A plurality of multirate frequency channels is produced by dividing the digital signal into an integer number of multirate frequency channels such that a sampling rate of each of the multirate frequency channels is proportional to a center frequency of the frequency channel. Signal processing is performed on each of the multirate frequency channels. The original sampling rate is reconstructed using the multirate frequency channels.

A system (20) for hearing assistance includes an array of microphones (23, 24), which are configured be mounted in proximity to a head of a user of the system and to output electrical signals in response to first acoustic waves that are incident on the microphones. A speaker (28) is configured for mounting in proximity to an ear of the user and configured to output second acoustic waves in response to a drive signal applied to the speaker. Processing circuitry (26) is configured to generate the drive signal by amplifying and filtering the electrical signals using a beamforming filter that emphasizes first sounds that impinge on the array of microphones within a selected angular range while suppressing second sounds that are spoken by the user.

Disclosed in the present application are an audio enhancement method and apparatus, and a computer storage medium. The method comprises: generating a group of audio collection signals by means of a microphone array; performing delay-and-sum processing on the group of audio collection signals, so as to generate a delay-and-sum signal; performing blocking matrix processing on the group of audio collection signals, so as to generate a blocking matrix signal; using an adaptive filtering matrix to filter the blocking matrix signal, and removing the filtered blocking matrix signal from the delay-and-sum signal, so as to obtain an enhanced audio output signal. The adaptive filtering matrix is based on at least one attenuation function, and each of the at least one attenuation function is updated at an interval of a corresponding predetermined update interval T.

A system, product and method comprising: capturing, by two or more microphones of a separate device physically separate from a hearable device of a user, a noisy audio signal from an environment of the user, wherein a plurality of people is present in the environment, the hearable device is used for providing audio output to the user; processing the noisy audio signal, thereby obtaining an enhanced audio signal, said processing comprises applying speech separation on the noisy audio signal to obtain a separate speech segment of a person of the plurality of people, wherein the speech separation utilizes an acoustic fingerprint of the person for extracting the separate speech segment of the person; and outputting the enhanced audio signal to the user via the at least one hearable device.

The invention provides an intelligent hearing aid method and device based on spectrum enhancement, and relates to the technical field of voice signal processing, and the method comprises the following steps: collecting an audio signal, and carrying out the preprocessing of the audio signal; converting the audio signal into a spectrogram, performing data annotation, and dividing the spectrogram into a training set, a verification set and a test set; creating a spectrum enhancement model and inputting a spectrogram of the training set for model training; performing multiple iterations on the spectrum enhancement model, performing hyper-parameter tuning until the model converges, and evaluating the model; and inputting a real-time audio signal, performing spectrum enhancement processing, and outputting. According to the invention, the frequency spectrum enhancement model is constructed and trained to perform frequency spectrum enhancement processing on the input audio signal, the frequency spectrum gain of the voice signal can be adaptively adjusted according to different noise types and noise intensities on different frequency bands, the quality of the voice signal is effectively improved, and the hearing aid effect is improved.

A hearing instrument has a housing to be worn in a designated wearing position behind the ear, an earpiece to be inserted into the auditory canal of a user, and a flexible connector that connects the earpiece to the housing. The hearing instrument further includes an output transducer for converting an output audio signal into a sound signal to be output to the user and a capacitive sensor with a control and evaluation circuit and two sensor electrodes electrically connected thereto. One of the sensor electrodes is arranged in the housing, while the other sensor electrode is arranged in the connector and / or in the earpiece.

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.

An illustrative hearing system may be configured to receive, from an input transducer included in a hearing device configured to be worn by a user, audio data representative of one or more audio signals presented to the user and acquire motion data representative of head movements of the user while the user wears the hearing device and / or own-voice data representative of an own-voice activity of the user. The hearing system may be further configured to determine, based the motion data and / or own-voice data, a listening state of the user with respect to the one or more audio signals and perform, based on the listening state, an operation associated with the hearing device.

A hearing aid includes a forward path for processing sound from the user's environment. The forward path includes a) a first microphone providing a first electric input signal representing sound as received at the first microphone, the first microphone being located away from an ear canal of the user, b) an audio signal processor for processing the first electric input signal, or a signal or signals originating therefrom, and for providing a processed signal, c) an output transducer for providing stimuli perceivable as sound to the user in dependence of the processed signal, and d) a second microphone configured to provide a second electric input signal representing sound received at the second microphone, the second microphone being located at or in the user's ear canal, and e) a feature extractor for extracting acoustic characteristics of the user's ear from the second electric input signal, or a signal originating therefrom.

The embodiment of the invention provides an impedance device and a system for simulating the vibration influence of a head on a vibration unit, the impedance device can comprise a mass part, an elastic part and a fixing part, the mass part is connected to the fixing part through the elastic part, the fixing part is a structure body with a hollow interior, the fixing structure comprises an opening, and the opening is communicated with the elastic part. The mass part is provided with an opening, the elastic part is located at the opening and connected with the fixed part, the elastic part and the fixed part form a cavity, and the elastic coefficient of the elastic part in the vibration direction of the mass part relative to the fixed part ranges from 600N / m to 5000N / m.

A hearing device includes: a pinna restorer for provision of a pinna output based on a first pinna input and a second pinna input, wherein the first pinna input is based on a primary first microphone input signal, and wherein the second pinna input is based on a primary second microphone input signal, the pinna restorer comprising: a first filter for provision of a first mixer input based on the first pinna input, a second filter for provision of a second mixer input based on the second pinna input, a first mixer for provision of a first mixer output based on the first mixer input and the second mixer input, and a pinna controller; and an input mixer for provision of an input mixer output based on the pinna output and a secondary mixer input, wherein the secondary mixer input is based on a secondary microphone input signal.

A method for training a speech enhancement neural network for being executed on a hearing device comprises: providing a speech enhancement neural network, providing a speech style transfer algorithm for converting speech samples with a first speech style into speech samples with a second speech style, obtaining at least one training data set and applying supervised training on the speech enhancement neural network. The speech enhancement neural network has a network audio input for receiving an input audio signal, one or more network layers for predicting an enhanced audio signal and / or a filter mask for filtering the input audio signal, and a network output for outputting the enhanced audio signal and / or the filter mask. The at least one training data set comprises a training input audio signal comprising a speech sample and a target speech sample.