Hearing aids with adaptive beamformer responsive to off-axis speech
AssigneeStarkey Laboratories, Inc.
InventorIvo Merks
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A hearing assistance system includes an adaptive directionality controller to control a target direction for sound reception. The adaptive directionality controller includes a beamformer, a speech detector to detect off-axis speech being speech that is not from the target direction, and a steering module to steer the beamformer in response to a detection of the off-axis speech.
Claims22
A hearing assistance system for receiving and processing sounds with control of directionality of sound reception, comprising:
- a processor configured to process the received sounds and including an adaptive directionality controller configured to control a target direction of the sound reception using a beamformer configured to cancel sound signals that are not coming from the target direction, the sound signals including off-axis speech and noise, the adaptive directionality controller configured to:
- detect the off-axis speech;
- and
- steer the beamformer to reduce the cancellation of the off-axis speech without substantially changing the cancellation of the noise in response to a detection of the off-axis speech.
A hearing assistance system for transmitting sounds into one or more ear canals, comprising:
- a plurality of microphones configured to receive sounds;
- one or more receivers configured to deliver processed sounds to the one or more ear canals;
- and
- a processor coupled between the plurality of microphones and the one or more receivers, the processor configured to process the received sounds and including an adaptive directionality controller configured to control a target direction, the adaptive directionality controller including:
- a beamformer configured to cancel off-axis sounds of the received sounds, the off-axis sounds being sounds that are not from the target direction;
- a speech detector configured to detect off-axis speech of the off-axis sounds;
- and
- a steering module configured to steer the beamformer in response to a detection of the off-axis speech to reduce the cancellation of the off-axis speech without changing the cancellation of noise of the off-axis sounds substantially.
A method for adaptive control of a target direction of sound reception by a hearing assistance system, the method comprising:
- using a beamformer to cancel off-axis sound signals that are not from the target direction, the off-axis sound signals including noise;
- detecting off-axis speech from the off-axis sound signals;
- and
- steering the beamformer to reduce the cancellation of the off-axis speech by the beamformer without substantially changing the cancellation of the noise by the beamformer in response to a detection of the off-axis speech.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.