Hearing aid with locating microphones
AssigneeSiemens Aktiengesellschaft
InventorsEberhard Zwicker, Thomas Beckenbauer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A hearing aid which can be built into a frame, such as eyeglasses, to be worn by a hearing-impaired person has a first microphone arrangement having a directional reception pattern, and a second microphone arrangement for sound locating. The second microphone arrangement includes a first locating microphone disposed in the region of one ear of the hearing-impaired person, and a second locating microphone disposed in the region of the other ear. The signal from both locating microphones are mixed by a low-pass filter with the signal from the microphone arrangement having a directional reception pattern, and the output of the mixing operation is supplied in common to both ears of the hearing-impaired person.
Claims4
A hearing aid system for hearing-impaired persons comprising:
- a frame wearable on the head of a hearing-impaired person;
- a first microphone arrangement mounted on said frame and having a directional reception pattern;
- a second microphone arrangement for locating the source of a sound, said second microphone arrangement consisting of first and second locating microphones mounted on said frame such that when said frame is worn by said hearing-impaired person said first locating microphone is disposed in the region of one ear of said hearing-impaired person and said second locating microphone is disposed in the region of the other ear of said person;
- two low-pass filters respectively connected to the outputs of said first and second locating microphones;
- means combining the output signals from said first microphone arrangement with the outputs of said low-pass filters;
- and
- means for supplying the output of said means for combining to both ears of said hearing-impaired person.
A hearing aid to be worn by a hearing-impaired person comprising:
- an eyeglass frame having a front lens-containing portion connected by respective hinges to two bows;
- a first microphone arrangement having directional reception characteristics consisting of a first microphone pair disposed at a distal end of one of said bows in the proximity of one of said hinges and a second pair of microphones disposed at a distal end of the other of said bows in the proximity of the other of said hinges;
- a second microphone arrangement consisting of a locating microphone mounted in said one of said bows so as to be disposed over one ear of said person when said eyeglasses are in place and a second locating microphone mounted in the other of said bows so as to be disposed over the other ear of said person when said eyeglasses are in place;
- two low-pass filters respectively disposed in said bows having inputs connected to the outputs of said respective first and second locating microphones;
- two mixing means respectively disposed in said bows for respectively combining the outputs of the low-pass filter and the microphone pair disposed in the same bow;
- and
- means for supplying the output of said means for mixing to both ears of said hearing-impaired person.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.