Remote Microphone Own-Voice Cancellation for Hearing Assistance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing hearing assistance systems using remote microphones can reproduce a user's own voice due to proximity, leading to annoying latency and increased signal levels, which existing noise suppression methods fail to adequately address.
Innovation Solution
A remote microphone device processes audio signals by determining the delay and level of the user's own voice, applying noise cancellation and adaptive beamforming to reduce or eliminate the signal contribution of the user's own voice, using a combination of noise canceling and beamforming techniques to minimize own voice perception.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a remote microphone device is used with a hearing device to improve signal-to-noise ratio, then the signal-to-noise ratio is improved by bringing the microphone closer to the speaker, but the user's own voice is picked up and reproduced causing annoying perception
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes the harmful own voice component from the audio signal captured by the remote microphone. The hearing device identifies and separates the own voice signal from the combined audio signal, then eliminates it to prevent annoying perception while preserving the useful speech signal.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs feedback by transmitting the user's own voice signal from the hearing device to the remote microphone device. This feedback loop enables the remote microphone to identify and cancel the own voice component in the captured audio signal, resolving the contradiction between capturing speech and avoiding own voice.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If noise suppression methods are applied to reduce own voice signal, then own voice perception is reduced, but existing methods fail to adequately address the problem across all frequencies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the frequency range into different bands and applies different processing strategies: noise cancellation for low and medium frequencies, and beamforming for higher frequencies. This segmentation allows each method to operate optimally within its suitable frequency range, achieving comprehensive coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes processing parameters based on frequency characteristics. Different signal processing techniques are applied depending on the frequency band, with noise cancellation parameters optimized for low/medium frequencies and beamforming parameters optimized for high frequencies, enabling effective own voice reduction across the entire spectrum.
3Measurement precision
If the remote microphone device captures audio signals from a distance, then the signal-to-noise ratio improves, but the own voice signal level increases causing latency issues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent converts the harmful own voice signal into a useful reference for cancellation. By using the own voice signal transmitted from the hearing device as a reference, the system identifies and removes this component from the remote microphone output, transforming what was causing latency and annoyance into a tool for improving audio quality.
Data Source
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AI summary
There is provided a method for providing hearing assistance to a user (16) wearing a hearing device (12R, 12L), comprising: capturing, by a microphone arrangement (40) of the hearing device (12R, 12L), a local sound comprising the user's own voice at a location of the user, to provide an own voice signal; transmitting the own voice signal from the hearing device to a remote microphone device (14) at a location remote from the user; capturing, by a microphone arrangement (28) of the remote microphone device (14), a remote sound at the location of the remote microphone device (14) to provide a remote audio signal; processing, by the remote microphone device, the remote audio signal so as to generate an output audio signal, taking into account the received own voice signal in a manner so as to reduce a signal contribution of the user's own voice in the output audio signal; transmitting the output audio signal from the remote microphone device to the hearing device; and stimulating, by the hearing device, the user's hearing based on the received output audio signal.