SNR Adjusted Envelope Sampling for Hearing Implants

A signal processing system for a hearing implant system having an implanted electrode array with a plurality of stimulation contacts for delivering electrode stimulation signals to adjacent auditory neural tissue, the system comprising:

• a band pass filter bank configured for processing an audio input signal to generate a plurality of band pass signals each representing an associated band of audio frequencies in the audio input signal;
• and
• an implant signal processor configured for processing the band pass signals to generate the electrode stimulation signals, wherein the processing includes:
• i. monitoring a key feature characteristic of the audio input signal,
• ii. using an original coding strategy to generate the electrode stimulation signals when the key feature is less than or equal to an initial value, and
• iii. using a different new coding strategy to generate the electrode stimulation signals when the key feature is greater than or equal to a coding change value;
• wherein the implant signal processor is configured for automatically transitioning from the original coding strategy to the new coding strategy over a transition period of time during which the implant signal processor adaptively changes the original coding strategy to become the new coding strategy.