Method for adapting a hearing aid considering the position of head and corresponding hearing aid

0001The present invention relates to a hearing aid which can be adapted to the spatial direction of an incoming acoustic signal, comprising multiple microphones for receiving input signals, and a computing means for calculating at least one direction from which arrives a predeterminable sound signal. Moreover, the present invention relates to a corresponding method for adapting a hearing aid to at least one spatial direction of the acoustic incidence.

0002With the known methods of "blind source separation" (blind source separation, BSS) multiple, simultaneously speaking, spatially distributed speaker can be separated and one of them will be highlighted to improve its clarity. The BSS, with a signal from the desired mixture of the hearing aid wearer useful sound may be highlighted in the document<patcit id="pcit0001" dnum="EP1017253A2"><text>EP 1017253 A2</text></patcit> described in detail. However, these or similar methods require an adaptation period of several seconds to the directions of the speakers are reliably estimated. Due to unavoidable head movements that require a renewed adaptation every time these algorithms are therefore currently only suitable for hearing aids.

0003The publication <patcit id="pcit0002" dnum="DE10148006A1"><text>DE 101 48 006 A1</text></patcit> discloses a portable Schallwiedergabeeinriehtung for generating a three-dimensional hearing impression. For detecting movement and orientation of a head of a device for the head orientation determination is integrated in a portable sound reproduction device, in particular headphones or helmet with built-in sound generators. Thus, the virtual sound waves do not follow the movements of the head of the listener and the artificially induced three-dimensional perception of sound corresponds to the natural perception of sound in real stationary sound sources.

0004Furthermore, the publication <patcit id="pcit0003" dnum="WO9943185A"><text>WO 99/43185 A</text></patcit> a binaural digital hearing aid. The hearing aids used in this case each have a transmission device for wireless transmission.

0005The object of the present invention is thus to be able to perform a source separation despite head movements in a reasonable time frame in hearing aids.

0006According to the invention this object is achieved by a hearing device according to claim. 1

0007Moreover, a method is provided as claimed in claim 4 according to the invention.

0008By avoiding a renewed adaptation process after a head movement the blind source separation may also be used in hearing aids, which in certain situations, the speech intelligibility can be dramatically increased.

0009Preferably, the instrument has binaural supply transmission means for wirelessly transmitting the head position at the second hearing device. Thus it is sufficient if a hearing aid is equipped with a position determining means for determining the head position. The transmitting device is already provided in many cases in binaural supply in the hearing aid.

0010The position determining means may be designed so that the position of the head is determined on the basis of the geomagnetic field. This has the advantage that not only a relative but also an absolute position of the head could be determined.

0011Alternatively, the position determination device may be configured so that the head position is determined using an acceleration sensor. This has the advantage that a common technology can be used with robust components.

0012In a simple embodiment of the invention, a head moving in the adapted state of the hearing aid is taken into account. In a further development, the current head position is taken into account in the hearing aid already during the adaptation process. This time can be further reduced for adjustment of the hearing aid.

0013The present invention will now be explained in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawing, which shows a block diagram of a hearing aid according to the invention.

0014The following embodiment described in detail is a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

0015A hearing aid as shown in the drawing has multiple microphones M1, Mn. The signals from the microphones are received by a pre-processing VV. A position determining unit PB returns the current head position also at the pre-processing VV. The pre-processed signals from the pre-processing VV be channeled to an adaptive processing and Entmischeinheit VE. As a result, the unit VE delivers the signals from the different sources Q1, Qk. Alternatively or additionally, the head position can be supplied from the position determining unit PB also to the processing and Entmischeinheit VE.

0016When positioning device PB are called "head tracker", for example, use the Earth's magnetic field to determine the position, are commercially available. When required, the head tracker is constantly the current head position to the pre-processing VV on. Preferably binaural supply this information is transmitted wirelessly to the hearing aid on the other side of the head.

0017In the pre-processing VV the current position will be offset against the microphone signals such that in the event of head movement, the change in direction of the microphones is included due to the head movement so that no new adaptation must be carried out as long as the external speaker or sound sources do not change their positions , If the head movement is already taking place during the adaptation, the head movement must be registered in accordance with time. In this case, the adaptation process, the time dependence of the signals is taken into account.