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US 11,529,516 B2Granted
Medial olivocochlear reflex sound coding with bandwidth normalization
AssigneeUniversidad de Salamanca
InventorEnrique Alejandro López-Poveda
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Abstract
A signal processing arrangement is described for signal processing in a bilateral hearing implant system. A channel compression module develops a inhibition-adjusted band pass signal for each band pass signal using a channel-specific dynamic inhibition adjustment based on a channel-normalized medial olivocochlear reflex model that reflects bandwidth energy for a corresponding contralateral band pass signal and bandwidth energy for a selected reference contralateral band pass signal.
Claims15
A signal processing system for a bilateral hearing implant system, the system comprising:
- left side and right side hearing implants, configured to communicate signals to each other, each of the hearing implants having:
- at least one sensing microphone configured for sensing a sound environment and developing a corresponding microphone signal output,
- a filter bank configured for processing the microphone signal output to generate a plurality of band pass signals,
- wherein each of the plurality of band pass signals has an associated amplitude, an associated band of audio frequencies, an associated bandwidth, and an associated instantaneous output energy E,
- wherein each of the plurality of band pass signals of a given filter bank has a corresponding contralateral band pass signal received from the other hearing implant,
- a medial olivocochlear control module configured to determine for each of the plurality of band pass signals a normalized instantaneous output energy E′, normalized based on a channel bandwidth of the corresponding contralateral bandpass signal and on a channel bandwidth of a selected reference contralateral band pass signal;
- a channel compression module configured to receive and process each of the plurality of band pass signals for the given hearing implant, and each of the normalized output energies from the plurality of contralateral band pass signals to develop an inhibition-adjusted band pass signal for each of the plurality of band pass signals, the channel compression module providing a channel-specific dynamic inhibition adjustment, in which the associated amplitude of each band pass signal is adjusted as a function of the normalized instantaneous output energy of the corresponding contralateral bandpass signal;
- a pulse timing and coding module configured for processing the inhibition-adjusted band pass signals and developing stimulation timing signals;
- and
- a pulse generation module configured for processing the stimulation timing signals and developing electrode stimulation signals for the given hearing implant for perception as sound.
7 more elements
A method for signal processing in a bilateral hearing implant system having left side and right side hearing implants configured to communicate signals to each other, the method for each hearing implant comprising:
- sensing a sound environment with at least one sensing microphone and developing a corresponding microphone signal output;
- processing the microphone signal output with a filter bank to generate a plurality of band pass signals, wherein each of the plurality of band pass signals has an associated amplitude, an associated band of audio frequencies, an associated bandwidth, and an associated instantaneous output energy E, and wherein each of the plurality of band pass signals of a given filter bank has a corresponding contralateral band pass signal received from the other hearing implant;
- determining, by using a medial olivocochlear control module, for each of the plurality of band pass signals, a normalized instantaneous output energy E′, by normalizing based on a channel bandwidth of the corresponding contralateral bandpass signal, and on a channel bandwidth of a selected reference contralateral band pass signal;
- receiving and processing with a channel compression module each of the plurality of band pass signals for the given hearing implant, and each of the normalized output energies from the plurality of contralateral band pass signals by applying channel-specific dynamic inhibition adjustments to each band pass signal of the plurality of band pass signals to develop an inhibition-adjusted band pass signal for each of the plurality of band pass signals, the channel-specific dynamic inhibition adjustments including
- adjusting the associated amplitude of each band pass signal as a function of the normalized instantaneous output energy;
- processing the inhibition-adjusted band pass signals with a pulse timing and coding module and developing stimulation timing signals;
- and
- processing the stimulation timing signals with a pulse generation module and developing electrode stimulation signals for the hearing implant.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.