Personalized Acoustic Feedback Control Using Hearing Profiles
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional acoustic feedback management techniques in audio devices, such as headphones and earphones, result in audio quality degradation and audible artifacts due to the lack of personalization based on user hearing profiles, leading to ineffective decorrelation and adaptive feedback cancellation methods.
Innovation Solution
An acoustic feedback management system that personalizes decorrelation and adaptive feedback cancellation techniques using user-specific hearing profiles, such as audiograms, to tailor gain application and decorrelation noise levels, ensuring they remain inaudible and minimizing acoustic feedback.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If conventional acoustic feedback management techniques are applied, then acoustic feedback is reduced, but audio quality degrades and audible artifacts are introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies decorrelation noise selectively in specific frequency bands where the user has hearing loss, rather than uniformly across all frequencies. The hearing profile guides the allocation of decorrelation effort to frequency regions where the user cannot perceive the artifacts, thereby maintaining audio quality in frequencies the user can hear while effectively managing feedback in frequencies the user cannot hear.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the amount of decorrelation noise applied based on the user's hearing profile parameters. By modifying the noise level parameter according to frequency-specific hearing thresholds, the system achieves effective feedback cancellation in frequencies where the user has hearing loss while keeping the noise below audible thresholds in frequencies where the user has normal hearing.
2Reliability
If aggressive feedback management is applied, then acoustic feedback is better controlled, but more audible artifacts are introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent concentrates aggressive feedback management only in frequency bands where the user has hearing loss, as identified by the hearing profile. In frequency bands where the user has normal hearing, the system applies minimal or no decorrelation noise, thereby avoiding audible artifacts in the frequencies the user can perceive while maintaining reliable feedback control in frequencies the user cannot hear.
3Ease of manufacture
If standardized feedback cancellation is used, then implementation is simple, but it does not account for individual user hearing variations
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary analysis of the user's hearing profile before applying feedback management. By pre-processing the hearing profile data to identify frequency bands with hearing loss, the system prepares the personalized parameters in advance, which then guide the feedback management process. This preliminary action enables the system to automatically adapt to individual users without complex real-time adjustments.
Data Source
AI summary
Acoustic feedback management systems, devices and methods are described. In an aspect, an audio device may analyze a hearing profile of a user to incorporate the hearing profile into various feedback management techniques (e.g., decorrelation techniques, adaptive feedback cancellation techniques, etc.) to personalize the management of acoustic feedback for the audio device.