Hearing aid with an oscillation detector, and method for detecting feedback in a hearing aid
AssigneeSiemens Audiologische Technik GmbH
InventorsVolkmar Hamacher, Georg-Erwin Arndt, Tom Weidner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In a hearing aid having an oscillation detector and a method for establishing the presence of oscillations in a hearing aid, sinusoidal input signals of the microphone can be detected, and so oscillations that are present can also be detected. To this end, the number of digitized sample values in consecutive periods of the input signal is determined, and a long-term average value NL and a short-term average value NK are formed from these numbers. When NL and NK are essentially identical, the presence of oscillations is detected.
Claims21
A hearing aid comprising:
- a microphone which receives an input acoustic signal and converts said input acoustic signal into an analog input signal;
- an earphone which emits an acoustic output signal;
- a signal path between said microphone and said earphone containing signal processing circuitry for processing said analog input signal;
- and
- an oscillation detector for detecting oscillations in said signal path as an indication of acoustic feedback in said signal path, said oscillation detector comprising an analog-to-digital converter supplied with said analog input signal for producing digitized sample values in consecutive periods of said analog input signal, a period measuring element supplied with said sample values for determining respective numbers of said sample values in said consecutive periods, a first averaging element for determining a long term average NL of said respective number of sample values, a second averaging element for determining a short-term average NK of said respective numbers, of sample values, a difference element for forming a difference between NL and NK, an absolute value element for forming an absolute value of said difference, a third averaging element for smoothing said absolute value of said difference to obtain a smoothed difference value, and an analyzer element supplied with said smoothed difference value and detecting oscillations in said signal path when said smoothed difference value is substantially zero.
A method for detecting oscillations in a signal path in a hearing aid between a microphone and an earphone, comprising the steps of:
- obtaining digitized sample values of an input signal from said microphone and determining respective numbers of said sample values in consecutive periods of said input signal;
- determining a long-term average value NL of said respective numbers of sample values and determining a short-term average value NK of said respective numbers of sample values;
- forming a difference between NL and NK;
- forming an absolute value of said difference;
- smoothing said absolute value of said difference to obtain a smoothed difference;
- and
- identifying oscillations as being present in said signal path when said smoothed difference is substantially zero.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.