EP-4742699-A2 - A HEARING SYSTEM COMPRISING A HEARING AID AND AN EXTERNAL PROCESSING DEVICE

EP4742699A2EP 4742699 A2EP4742699 A2EP 4742699A2EP-4742699-A2

Abstract

A hearing system comprises at least one hearing aid (HA) configured to be worn by a user at or in an ear of the user, and an external, portable processing device (EPD). The at least one hearing aid comprises a) at least one HA-input transducer for providing at least one HA-electric input signal representing sound in the environment of the hearing aid; b) a configurable noise reduction system for reducing noise in the at least one HA-electric input signal or in a signal originating therefrom based on a resulting set of noise reduction parameters; c) a noise reduction controller configured to determine a local set of noise reduction parameters; and d) a data receiver configured to receive data via a communication link from the external processing device. The external processing device comprises A) at least one EPD-input transducer for providing at least one EPD-electric input signal representing sound in the environment of the external processing device; B) a parameter estimator for providing an external set of noise reduction parameters configured to reduce noise in the at least one EPD-electric input signal, or in the at least one HA-electric input signal, or in a signal originating therefrom; and C) a data transmitter configured to transmit data, including said external set of noise reduction parameters, via said communication link to the hearing aid. The noise reduction controller is configured to determine said resulting set of noise reduction parameters based on said local set of noise reduction parameters, or on said external set of noise reduction parameters, or on a mixture thereof, in dependence of a noise reduction control signal. A hearing aid and a method of operating a hearing system is further disclosed.

Inventors

PEDERSEN, MICHAEL SYSKIND
JENSEN, JESPER
ROHDE, Nels Hede
SATHYAPRIYAN, Vasudha

Assignees

Oticon A/s

Dates

Publication Date: 20260513
Application Date: 20230323

Claims (15)

A hearing system comprising at least one hearing aid (HA) configured to be worn by a user at or in an ear of the user, and an external, portable processing device (EPD); • the at least one hearing aid comprising ∘ at least one HA-input transducer for providing at least one HA-electric input signal representing sound in the environment of the hearing aid; ∘ a configurable noise reduction system for reducing noise in the at least one HA-electric input signal or in a signal originating therefrom based on a resulting set of noise reduction parameters; ∘ a noise reduction controller configured to determine a local set of noise reduction parameters; ∘ a data receiver configured to receive data via a communication link from the external processing device; • the external processing device comprising ∘ at least one EPD-input transducer for providing at least one EPD-electric input signal representing sound in the environment of the external processing device; ∘ a voice activity detector for providing a voice activity estimate in the at least one EPD-electric input signal, or in the at least one HA-electric input signal, or in a signal originating therefrom; ∘ a data transmitter configured to transmit data, including said voice activity estimate, via said communication link to the hearing aid, wherein said noise reduction controller is configured to determine said resulting set of noise reduction parameters based on said local set of noise reduction parameters, or on said voice activity estimate, or on a mixture thereof, in dependence of a noise reduction control signal.
A hearing system according to claim 1 comprising a signal quality estimator or separate signal quality estimators configured to estimate an external signal quality parameter of the at least one EPD-electric input signal, or a signal originating therefrom, and a local signal quality parameter of the at least one HA-electric input signal, or of a signal originating therefrom.
A hearing system according to claim 2 wherein the noise reduction controller is configured to determine the noise reduction control signal in dependence of the signal quality parameter of the at least one EPD-electric input signal, and/or of the at least one HA-electric input signal, or in a signal originating therefrom.
A hearing system according to claims 2 or 3 comprising a comparator configured to compare the local signal quality parameter with the external signal quality parameter provided by the signal quality estimators(s), and wherein the comparator is configured to provide the noise reduction control signal in dependence thereof.
A hearing system according to any one of claims 2-4 wherein the signal quality parameter of the HA- or EPD-electric input signals comprises one or more of a signal to noise ratio, a level, a voice activity parameter, a speech intelligibility indicator, and a bit error rate.
A hearing system according to any one of claims 1-5 further comprising a parameter estimator for providing an external set of noise reduction parameters configured to reduce noise in the at least one EPD-electric input signal, or in the at least one HA-electric input signal, or in a signal originating therefrom, wherein the hearing aid is configured to detect whether said external set of noise reduction parameters are received in the hearing aid from the external processing device, and to provide a reception control signal representative thereof, wherein the noise reduction controller is configured to base the resulting set of noise reduction parameters solely on the local set of noise reduction parameters in case no noise reduction parameters are received in the hearing aid from the external processing device as indicated by said reception control signal.
A hearing system according to claim 6 wherein the parameter estimator of the external processing device comprises a deep neural network
A hearing system according to claim 7, wherein different deep neural networks are provided for different parameters.
A hearing system according to any of the claims 6-8, configured to base the resulting set of noise reduction parameters on a mixture of the local and external set of noise reduction parameters provided as a weighted combination of the local set of noise reduction parameters and the external set of noise reduction parameters, wherein the weights of a given weighted combination depend on the respective local and external signal quality parameters (SQE-L, SQE-X) of the at least one HA-electric input signal and the at least one EPD-electric input signal.
A hearing system according to claim 6 wherein the individual weights of the hearing aid and the external processing device are adapted to scale with their respective signal quality parameters, respectively.
A hearing system according to any one of claims 1-10 comprising a sound scene classifier for classifying an acoustic environment around the hearing system and providing a sound scene classification signal representative of a current acoustic environment around the hearing system.
A hearing system according to claim 11 configured to control the communication link in dependence of the sound scene classification signal.
A hearing system according to any one of claims 1-12 comprising a distance estimator or a delay estimator configured to estimate a distance or a delay, respectively, between the at least one hearing aid and the external processing device.
A hearing system according to claim 13 wherein the distance estimator or the delay estimator is configured to estimate the distance or delay, respectively, between the at least one hearing aid and the external processing device in dependence of a correlation between an envelope of the noise reduction parameters provided by the external processing device and an envelope of the at least one HA electric input signal or of a signal originating therefrom.
A hearing aid (HA) configured to be worn by a user at or in an ear of the user comprising • at least one input transducer, termed a HA-input transducer, for providing at least one electric input signal, termed a HA-electric input signal, representing sound in the environment of the hearing aid; • a configurable noise reduction system for reducing noise in the at least one HA-electric input signal or in a signal originating therefrom based on a resulting set of noise reduction parameters, said resulting noise reduction parameters being determined in dependence of a noise reduction control signal; • a noise reduction controller configured to determine a local set of noise reduction parameters; and • a receiver configured to receive data via a communication link from an external processing device, including a voice activity estimate; wherein the noise reduction controller is configured to determine a resulting set of noise reduction parameters based on said local set of noise reduction parameter, or on said voice activity estimate, or on a mixture thereof in dependence of a noise reduction control signal.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD Noise reduction in hearing aids has its limitations due to the limited computational power. The limited space and battery power in a hearing aid prevents computationally demanding algorithms, such as noise reduction based on large deep neural networks (DNN), or the like, to be executed. In most situations, the hearing aids cope well but in a small fraction of acoustic environments, noise reduction exceeding the capabilities of the hearing aid is needed. In such situations, computational capabilities from another device could be used, e.g. a dedicated external processing device or a phone. One problem of using an external device is the transmission delay. Transmitting audio from the hearing aid microphones to the external device, enhancing the signal, and transmitting the enhanced signal back to the hearing aid all takes time. Preferably, it should take less than ten milliseconds (ms) from the sound reaches the microphone until it reaches the ear. Even if an externally enhanced audio signal is transmitted to the hearing instrument, it may cost additional delay, if e.g. the enhanced signal requires further processing in order to compensate for the hearing loss and integrate the external sound with the local hearing aid microphone signals. SUMMARY A hearing system: In an aspect of the present application, a hearing system comprising at least one hearing aid (HA) configured to be worn by a user at or in an ear of the user, and an external, portable processing device (EPD) is provided. The at least one hearing aid comprises at least one HA-input transducer for providing at least one HA-electric input signal representing sound in the environment of the hearing aid (HA); ∘ a configurable noise reduction system for reducing noise in the at least one HA-electric input signal or in a signal originating therefrom based on a resulting set of noise reduction parameters;∘ a noise reduction controller configured to determine a local set of noise reduction parameters;∘ a data receiver configured to receive data via a communication link from the external processing device. The external processing device comprises ∘ at least one EPD-input transducer for providing at least one EPD-electric input signal representing sound in the environment of the external processing device (EPD);∘ a parameter estimator for providing an external set of noise reduction parameters configured to reduce noise in the at least one EPD-electric input signal, or in the at least one HA-electric input signal, or in a signal originating therefrom; and∘ a data transmitter configured to transmit data, including said external set of noise reduction parameters, via said communication link to the hearing aid. The noise reduction controller may be configured to determine the resulting set of noise reduction parameters based on a) the local set of noise reduction parameters, or b) on the external set of noise reduction parameters, or c) on a mixture thereof, in dependence of a noise reduction control signal. Thereby an improved hearing system may be provided. A hearing system according to the present disclosure may have the advantage that when extra noise reduction is needed, a set of noise reduction parameters (e.g. a gain (or gains, possibly varying across time and frequency)) can be transmitted from the external processing device to the hearing aid. Even though the noise reduction parameters (e.g. gains) are estimated externally, it may (at least in certain situations) be assumed that the signal of interest (e.g. a target speech signal) will occupy more or less the same time frequency units at the local hearing aid microphones (as the external noise reduction parameters, e.g. gains, cf. e.g. FIG. 7A, 7B). Hence, a gain estimated from an external processing device (e.g. a microphone unit), e.g. located at the user's chest, is thus also valid for speech enhancement when applied to a signal based on a local hearing aid microphone. The terms 'HA-input transducer' and 'HA-electric input signal' and 'EPD-input transducer' and 'EPD-electric input signal' are intended to be short for 'hearing aid input transducer' and 'hearing aid electric input signal' and 'external processing device input transducer' and 'external processing device electric input signal', respectively. The use of the abbreviations in the claims is intended to easily differentiate a reference to the input transducers and the electric input signals of the hearing aid (HA) from the input transducers and the electric input signals of the external processing device (EPD). The terms 'hearing aid' and 'hearing instrument' are used interchangeably in the present disclosure without any intended difference in meaning. The term 'noise reduction parameters' is intended to include voice activity parameters, e.g. for controlling the update of a beamformer, or signal to noise ratios (or similar 'signal quality parameters'), e.g. for controlling a post-filter. A) The local set of noise reduction p