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EP4124060B1 - Instrument auditif - Google Patents

Instrument auditif Download PDF

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Publication number
EP4124060B1
EP4124060B1 EP21186454.1A EP21186454A EP4124060B1 EP 4124060 B1 EP4124060 B1 EP 4124060B1 EP 21186454 A EP21186454 A EP 21186454A EP 4124060 B1 EP4124060 B1 EP 4124060B1
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
signal
hearing device
transfer
transducer
wanted
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Active
Application number
EP21186454.1A
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German (de)
English (en)
Other versions
EP4124060A1 (fr
Inventor
Thomas ZURBRÜGG
Antonio Hölzl
Markus Hofbauer
Erwin Kuipers
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Sonova Holding AG
Original Assignee
Sonova AG
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Publication date
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Priority to EP21186454.1A priority Critical patent/EP4124060B1/fr
Priority to DK21186454.1T priority patent/DK4124060T3/da
Publication of EP4124060A1 publication Critical patent/EP4124060A1/fr
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Publication of EP4124060B1 publication Critical patent/EP4124060B1/fr
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    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
    • H04R1/00—Details of transducers, loudspeakers or microphones
    • H04R1/10—Earpieces; Attachments therefor ; Earphones; Monophonic headphones
    • H04R1/1016—Earpieces of the intra-aural type
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
    • H04R2420/00—Details of connection covered by H04R, not provided for in its groups
    • H04R2420/07—Applications of wireless loudspeakers or wireless microphones
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
    • H04R2460/00—Details of hearing devices, i.e. of ear- or headphones covered by H04R1/10 or H04R5/033 but not provided for in any of their subgroups, or of hearing aids covered by H04R25/00 but not provided for in any of its subgroups
    • H04R2460/05—Electronic compensation of the occlusion effect
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
    • H04R2460/00—Details of hearing devices, i.e. of ear- or headphones covered by H04R1/10 or H04R5/033 but not provided for in any of their subgroups, or of hearing aids covered by H04R25/00 but not provided for in any of its subgroups
    • H04R2460/11—Aspects relating to vents, e.g. shape, orientation, acoustic properties in ear tips of hearing devices to prevent occlusion

Definitions

  • Hearing devices as described in this text are hearing aids, i.e., medical devices that help someone hard of hearing to better hear ambient sound. Hearing aids are configured to capture ambient sound, to process the thus obtained signal in a frequency dependent manner, and to emit a processed sound signal, which is usually amplified at least for some frequencies, into the hear canal.
  • hearing devices as described in this text comprise other devices that produce sound in the ear, especially consumer electronic devices, such as earphones or hearables.
  • a hearing device has an electroacoustic transducer ('loudspeaker', 'speaker', also called 'receiver', especially if the hearing device is a hearing aid) and is equipped to feed a wanted signal to the electroacoustic transducer for producing a wanted sound signal in a volume in front of the eardrum.
  • a hearing device may comprise one or more outer microphones to pick up ambient sound and/or an interface to an external device, for example a phone or other consumer electronics device for obtaining the wanted signal.
  • Hearing devices often comprise an earpiece (they may consist of such earpiece) placed in an outer part of the ear canal and closing off the ear canal.
  • earpiece they may consist of such earpiece
  • hearing aids in such a case one often speaks about 'closed fitting' hearing aids.
  • a first category of solutions comprises accepting trade-offs: One can either decide on open fittings and accept that there are limited benefits (this is mostly the preferred approach in cases of mild hearing losses), or one decides on closed fittings accompanied by counseling.
  • a second category of solution focuses on active noise control (ANC) involving a closed-loop feedback using an ear canal microphone.
  • ANC active noise control
  • the sound in the ear canal is picked up, and a counter noise is generated, i.e., sound waves equal to the emitted sound but with opposed polarity are emitted into the ear canal.
  • the use of ear canal microphones has both, limits and disadvantages.
  • the discriminator circuit requires a transformer in the hearing aid electronics. Therefore, implementation of the active sound absorber in a hearing aid comes with substantial additional cost and substantial space requirements both, in the transducer and in the electronic, as well as with additional power consumption due to the discriminator circuit.
  • US 2018/0084328 concerns a method of operating a hearing device with an earpiece.
  • the hearing device comprises an outer microphone and an inner microphone.
  • the received signal at the eardrum is adapted so as to correspond to a free-ear received signal. This is done based on an estimation by means of an electroacoustic model.
  • a hearing device (hearing aid, earphone, hearable, etc.) is provided according to claim 1.
  • the hearing device comprising an earpiece, which may be adapted to separate an ear canal volume of a user's ear canal from an outside.
  • the ear canal volume may comprise the entire ear canal or only a portion thereof, for example only an inner portion (portion close to the eardrum). In this text, the ear canal volume is often termed "inner ear canal volume”.
  • the earpiece may be an earpiece adapted to fit to the ear canal of the user so as to at least partially sit in the ear canal or at its entrance.
  • the hearing device is a behind-the ear hearing aid
  • the earpiece is connected, by a connection comprising a tube and/or a wire, to a behind-the-ear component of the hearing aid.
  • the hearing device may consist of the earpiece, i.e., the earpiece may constitute the entire hearing device.
  • the hearing device's receiver may be in the ear canal or may at least partially be outside of the ear canal, for example in the concha, such as by a retaining structure.
  • the earpiece is an earpiece that may provide occlusion. More in general, the earpiece may be configured to act as an acoustical barrier between the outside and a volume between earpiece and eardrum.
  • the earpiece may be an individually adapted earpiece or alternatively a generic earpiece fitting to the ear canal (to lie within the ear canal and/or at its entrance) without individual adaptation (generic domes or the like). Also, the earpiece may be adapted to sit entirely within the ear canal, or alternatively it may be adapted to partially or fully occlude the ear canal by being placed at its entrance. Further, the earpiece may be one side of a circum-aural headphone that separates the inner ear canal volume from the outside by sitting on the user's head and surrounding the ear.
  • the hearing device comprises an electroacoustic transducer (receiver, loudspeaker) in acoustic communication with the inner ear canal volume.
  • the electroacoustic transducer has, as known in the art, two electrical terminals (one of the terminals for example being connected to ground and thereby for example being constituted by an electrically conducting housing) between which an electrical transducer input signal can be applied, so that the transducer transforms it into an acoustic signal.
  • the hearing device further has a wanted sound signal path, i.e., it is equipped to process a hearing device input into a wanted signal, and to produce the (electrical) transducer input signal applied to the terminals of the electroacoustic transducer from the wanted signal.
  • the hearing device input may comprise an ambient signal picked up by one or more outer microphones. In addition or as an alternative, it may comprise an audio signal received from an external device via an appropriate interface.
  • the hearing device input in general comprises a signal or signal combination that is incident on the hearing device and from which the hearing instrument derives the wanted signal.
  • the hearing aid input may comprise acoustic input (such as incident ambient sound) and/or an electrical signal as input (such as audio signal picked up by a communication interface).
  • the wanted signal is an electrical signal that represents the acoustic signal the user of the hearing device should hear.
  • the hearing device is further equipped to measure a physical signal between the two terminals of the receiver and to use the measured physical signal as an input quantity for obtaining the transducer input signal.
  • the invention proposes to measure directly how the electroacoustic transducer itself 'responds' to the applied transducer input signal. This is based on the insight that the electroacoustic transducer is a bi-directional element - the voltage at the electrical input (between the terminals) depends on the acoustic load condition and on the acoustic signal present in the ear canal.
  • the present invention is based on the approach that the electroacoustic transducer is used both, for producing sound and sensing sound concurrently.
  • the measured physical signal may thus for example be a voltage between the terminals if the electrical transducer input signal is applied as a current signal, or it may be a current flowing into the electroacoustic transducer if the electrical transducer input signal is applied as a voltage signal.
  • the invention effectively proposes to apply a frequency dependent, possibly negative, constant or possibly not constant electrical shunt to the terminals of the electroacoustic transducer.
  • the possibly preprocessed measured physical signal is subject to an admittance transfer function or an impedance transfer function (depending on whether it is a voltage or a current) to yield a transfer signal.
  • the transfer signal may result from a transfer impedance or transfer admittance applied to the quantity derived from the measured physical signal.
  • the transfer impedance or transfer admittance may be frequency dependent. However, in embodiments it may be constant over time, or it may be constant over time at least for a certain hearing device program.
  • the admittance transfer function or impedance transfer function may be implemented by adaptive filtering so as to yield adaptation to the environment ('adaptive sensorless control').
  • the transfer signal is then added to the wanted signal to yield the transducer input signal.
  • the transducer input signal may effectively correspond to a signal that results from applying the wanted signal to the transducer if the transducer is shunted by a frequency dependent, possibly negative electrical shunt.
  • the acoustic impedance of the transducer can be adjusted to a desired value.
  • the acoustic impedance may be adjusted to be close to zero, so that a vibrational source such as the own voice gives rise to a minimal sound pressure only, whereby the occlusion effect is efficiently eliminated.
  • the admittance/impedance transfer function may be adapted to individual properties, such as the resonance situation in the ear canal, and/or on possible hearing loss. It is even possible that the admittance/impedance transfer function is different from being constant and is for example dynamically adapted to the situation. For example, the admittance/impedance transfer function may be chosen to be different in quiet environments compared to noisy environments, etc., and/or may be actively adjustable by the wearer to meet their comfort needs.
  • the admittance/impedance transfer function may in embodiments be an adaptive filter.
  • the feedback loop according to the present invention allows to give the electroacoustic transducer a desired sound absorbing characteristic or even the characteristic of a negative sound reflector, i.e., an in-the ear canal sound attenuation characteristic.
  • a desired sound absorbing characteristic or even the characteristic of a negative sound reflector i.e., an in-the ear canal sound attenuation characteristic.
  • the present invention is therefore suited for in-ear voice attenuation especially for reducing occlusion in closed fitting set-ups. By attenuating direct sound, it may in addition or as an alternative contribute to an improved signal-to-noise ratio.
  • the electroacoustic transducer may be a standard speaker, such as a single coil speaker, for example a moving coil receiver or a balanced armature receiver.
  • the electroacoustic transducer may especially have exactly two terminals. It is possible, that, as usual, one of the terminals is connected to ground so that effectively only one dedicated electrical lead connects the electroacoustic transducer with the hearing device's electronics.
  • the receiver in contrast to the prior art does, therefore not require any measuring coil or similar and hence does not require any modifications compared to known and widely used receivers for hearing aids or consumer electronic hearing devices.
  • the physical signal may also be corrected for an influence of the wanted signal on the physical signal to be reduced or eliminated.
  • the wanted signal may be combined with (for example subtracted from; possibly after appropriate filtering) the physical signal to account for the fact that the measured physical signal in addition to the sound pressure in the ear canal is also influenced by the transducer input signal and hence also by the wanted signal.
  • the hearing device For obtaining the electrical transducer input signal from the hearing device input and the measured physical signal, the hearing device comprises a signal processing stage, especially a digital signal processing stage.
  • the impedance transfer function may be implemented digitally, i.e., in embodiments, for example, the frequency dependent shunt admittance/impedance may be determined by digital filter coefficients.
  • the hearing device may comprise an analog-to-digital converter for converting the measured physical signal into a digital signal.
  • the hearing device may comprise a voltage-to-current conversion stage, such as a voltage-controlled-current-source (VCCS).
  • VCCS voltage-controlled-current-source
  • This voltage-to-current conversion stage may be an analog device.
  • the adding of the transfer signal to the wanted signal may take place in the digital domain, before the conversion into an analog signal.
  • the wanted signal may then be provided as a digital representation of the voltage signal, too, i.e., the effect of the voltage-to-current transfer (which takes place in the analog domain after the summation) is compensated in an according calculation step.
  • the hearing device may comprise one or more of the following:
  • Processing the hearing device input into the wanted signal may comprise the digital signal processing steps as known per se for signal processing in hearing aids, namely one or more of monaural beamforming (if more than one outer microphone is present), binaural beamforming, sound cleaning, in particular noise cancelling (cancelling of wind noise, reverberation, feedback, etc.), applying a frequency dependent, user specific gain, influencing the dynamics (suppression of too loud sound), frequency shifting, etc.
  • Signal processing may optionally comprise new approaches like Artificial Intelligence (AI), use of a Neural Networks (NN), such as aDeep Neural Networks (DNN), and/or machine learning, etc.
  • processing the hearing device input may comprise receiving the input as wireless signal and transforming it into a voltage or current signal.
  • the hearing device input comprises both, ambient sound picked up by at least one microphone and an audio signal from an external device, and the wanted signal is based on both.
  • the signal processing stage may be equipped for comparing the wanted signal and the measured physical signal to obtain information on sound portions in the ear canal that do not stem from the transducer output.
  • a subtraction of the wanted signal and the measured physical signal from each other may yield an adjusted physical signal being the physical signal with eliminated (for example subtracted) portions stemming from the wanted signal, and it is this adjusted physical signal that may be processed into the transfer signal.
  • Such adjusted physical signal may serve as an estimate of acoustic signal portions not corresponding to the wanted signal, i.e., the bone conducted sound portions, especially of the own voice, as well as ambient signal portions propagating into the ear canal.
  • the electroacoustic transducer serves as a kind of inner microphone simultaneously with serving as a loudspeaker producing the wanted sound, and simultaneously with serving as a sound attenuation or sound cancelling device.
  • the adjusted physical signal therefore, provides an estimate of bone conducted sound as a by-product of the approach according to aspects of the present invention.
  • the estimate may be used for special purposes, such as for discriminating between situation in which the user speaks and situations in which she/he doesn't, and/or such as using the estimate (possible after appropriate filtering, for example equalizing to correct for a predominance of low frequency portions) for communication with a further user or device, in that the estimate is sent to a remote device via an appropriate interface.
  • the present invention also concerns a method of processing a signal in a hearing device as claimed in claim 13.
  • the method may comprise the additional step of calculating, from the measured receiver signal and from the calculated wanted sound signal, an estimate of the own voice, especially be a comparison of the measured receiver signal and of the wanted sound signal as described in this text.
  • estimate may be used for influencing the processing in the hearing device - for example, the processing may be made dependent on whether or not the user speaks.
  • estimate of the own voice may be subject to a filtering and then may be used as voice signal for communicating with a remote device.
  • an own voice estimate being a by-product of the occlusion suppression approach taught in this text.
  • Figure 1 illustrates an ear canal 1 that on one side is terminated by the tympanic membrane (eardrum) 2.
  • An inner ear canal volume 3 is terminated by the eardrum 2 on one side and by a closed-fitting earpiece 10 on the other side.
  • the closed-fitting earpiece 10 may comprise a receiver 11 (electroacoustic transducer), or may be, for example via tubing, in acoustic communication with a receiver.
  • Bone conducted sound leading to a bone conduction caused volume flow q bc is coupled into the inner ear canal volume 3. Due to the earpiece 10 closing off the inner ear canal volume and the rather high impedance Z dr of the eardrum, this volume flow encounters a high resistance, i.e.
  • a first prior art solution to this problem is to provide the earpiece with a vent 12.
  • the aspect ratio of the vent 12 must not be too high, and for high aspect ratios (to be more precise: high ratios between the length and the cross section areas for a given residual volume), the benefits of the closed fitting approach, especially high possible amplification without any feedback problems, are at least partially lost.
  • a second prior art solution ( Figure 3 ) is active occlusion control (active noise control ANC).
  • An ear canal microphone 14 in the earpiece or in acoustic communication therewith picks up sound in the ear canal.
  • An active occlusion control electronic unit 15 separates undesired bone conducted sound from possible desired sound emitted into the ear by the receiver and eliminates this by active noise reduction (ANR) in a closed feedback loop.
  • ANR active noise reduction
  • the present invention is directed to resolving the own-voice (bone conducted sound) problem in closed fittings without the use of an ear canal microphone ("sensorless control").
  • a possible principle is illustrated in Figure 4 .
  • the two terminals 16, 17 of the receiver are connected via a shunt 21 having a shunt impedance Z sh .
  • the impedance Z sh of the shunt is frequency-dependent and may be negative. It may be chosen so that the resulting acoustic impedance is close to zero, i.e., so that a sound flow originating from bone conduction q bc results in only minimal sound pressure.
  • the acoustic impedance may be smaller than the far field acoustic impedance ⁇ *c, whereby the electroacoustic transducer effectively serves as negative reflector, especially, for example at least for some frequencies between 100 Hz and 250 Hz.
  • DSP digital signal processor
  • a hardware accelerator for example having further functions, such as serving as dedicated digital filter
  • FIG. 5 depicts an according scheme.
  • the thus calculated signal ('transfer signal') is transformed into a physical current I by a for example analog voltage-to-current conversion stage 32, and the receiver is subject to this current.
  • the receiver may be a receiver of the known kind and may be an off-the-shelf product.
  • the receiver may be a receiver as known for hearing devices of the kind described herein.
  • the receiver may have the two terminals 16, 17 only, i.e. may be a single coil receiver.
  • the admittance can have small (frequency dependent) values and can even be negative.
  • the receiver may have the mentioned negative reflection coefficient, i.e. it can minimize sound than is incident on it, so that the receiver may effectively act as noise canceller without the need for an inner microphone.
  • the receiver 11 effectively acts to reduce sound in the ear canal.
  • the receiver 11 in addition has the function of producing a sound signal in the ear canal.
  • the wanted sound signal has to be added to the calculated admittance transfer signal.
  • the hearing device is a hearing aid having two outer microphones 41 picking up ambient sound.
  • the according signals are subject to a hearing aid gain stage 42 in which a frequency dependent signal processing, which depends on the needs of the person wearing the hearing aid, is carried out.
  • This signal processing may include sound cleaning and a user adapted gain model as well as, possibly, beamforming.
  • Frequency dependent signal processing in hearing aids is known in the art, and the details of the model are not relevant for the present invention. Therefore, the particulars of the hearing aid gain stage 42, as well as a possible equalizing stage 43 (that may be integrated in the gain stage), are not described in any more detail here.
  • a summation stage 44 adds the hearing aid gain signal (wanted sound signal) to the impedance transfer signal.
  • a dashed connection 45 between the hearing aid gain stage 42 (and/or the equalizing stage 43) and the admittance transfer calculation stage 31 illustrates the possibility that the wanted sound signal - or other information about the incident sound and/or the sound produced in the ear canal - may be used as a further input quantity for calculating the transfer signal.
  • the impedance at the receiver input side may be made dependent on the wanted signal, i.e. depending on the acoustic situation the wearer is in, the impedance need not be constant.
  • the admittance transfer function implementation 31 may be switched off, or the admittance may be set to a lower value than in a speaking situation, so as to provide more acoustic gain.
  • the hearing device wanted signal may be combined with - optionally after some filtering (not shown in Fig. 7 ) -the measured receiver signal, especially by subtracting the wanted signal from the measured receiver signa, or vice versa (the sign not being of importance, as the sign of the admittance transfer function can be positive or negative), so that the signal that is subject to the admittance transfer function comprises those parts of the signal that do not come from the receiver itself.
  • a comparison of the measured receiver signal and of the wanted sound signal - especially a subtraction of the measured receiver signal from the wanted sound signal - also yields information on those parts of the acoustic signal in the ear canal that do not stem from the wanted sound signal, but especially from the own voice of the wearer of the hearing device. This may be used to pick up the own voice in the ear canal without the need for an inner microphone.
  • Figure 8 shows an according example with analog-to-digital converters 51 between the microphones 41 and the hearing aid gain stage ( FIG. 8 illustrates a combined hearing aid gain and equalizing stage 46) and with digital-to-analog converters 52 at the output of the hearing aid gain calculation stage (and optional equalizing stage) 46 on the one hand and at the output of the admittance transfer calculation stage 31 on the other hand. The summation then takes place in the analog domain (summation stage 44).
  • FIG. 8 This set-up of Fig. 8 features the disadvantage that two digital-to-analog converters are required.
  • Figure 9 depicts an alternative architecture with just a single digital-to-analog converter 52. The summation then takes place in the digital domain (summation stage 44). Because the voltage-to-current conversion stage 32 is necessarily in the analog domain, in this architecture the sum of the wanted hearing aid signal and the transfer signal is subject to the voltage-to-current conversion and not only the admittance transfer signal as in the embodiment of Fig. 8 .
  • the hearing aid wanted signal is subject to a voltage-to-current transfer compensation (voltage-to-current transfer compensation stage 61, especially implemented by a digital filter) prior to being subject to summation, i.e., the wanted signal is represented as a digital voltage signal when subject to the summation and not as a current signal as for example in Fig. 8 .
  • the voltage-to-current transfer compensation may be integrated in the calculation of the wanted signal.
  • the topology of the system includes a feedback loop
  • signal processing has to be very fast. Delays of a plurality of milliseconds are in many situations not tolerable.
  • the impedance transfer calculation stage 31 and the summation stage 44 are in the digital domain. In order to keep latency low, the different stages may be physically implemented in different parts of the hearing device digital electronics.
  • the hearing aid gain calculating and equalizing stage may be implemented in the hearing aid's digital signal processor (DSP), it is an option to realize the impedance transfer calculation stage 31 in a hearing aid's hardware accelerator (such as a dedicated Bi-Quad filter), this having the advantage that calculation is very quick and does not load the DSP.
  • a hearing aid's hardware accelerator such as a dedicated Bi-Quad filter
  • the summation stage in the digital-to-analog converter 52.
  • the voltage-to-current transfer compensation stage 61 may be realized by the hearing aid's digital signal processor (DSP), i.e. the DSP may directly output the wanted signal as a signal compensated for the voltage-to-current transfer.
  • Figure 10 shows an alternative principle:
  • the receiver 11 is fed with a voltage signal from the digital-to-analog converter 52 without any voltage-to-current conversion, and a current measuring stage 64 measures the current drawn by the receiver.
  • the measured current signal is then (after analog-to-digital conversion and optionally subtraction of the possibly filtered (Filter 71) wanted hearing aid signal) fed to an impedance transfer calculation stage 63.
  • the resulting transfer signal is, for example still in the digital domain so that only one digital-to-analog converter is needed, added to the hearing aid wanted signal (summation stage 44) to yield the voltage signal fed to the receiver 11 after digital-to-analog conversion.
  • Figure 11 depicts a variant in which the outer microphones 41 and the associated analog-to-digital converters 51 are replaced (for a hearing device being different from a hearing aid, for example a hearable) or supplemented (dashed line; if the hearing device is a hearing aid or other hearing device that is equipped to pick up ambient sound) by a wireless communication interface 67.
  • a processing stage 66 may optionally, in addition to processing the hearing device input into the wanted signal, also estimate the (mainly bone conducted) own voice portion of the measured physical signal and for example transfer the same to a remote device via the wireless communication interface 67.
  • the admittance transfer function or impedance transfer function will be determined so that a desired target acoustic impedance (of for example close to zero for the frequencies of interest that are generally in the range between 20 Hz and 5 kHz (especially if reduction of ambient sound is important),for example 50-500 Hz (especially if the reduction of bone conducted sound is the primary issue), especially around 100-250 Hz) is reached.
  • the electrical admittance/impedance will in addition to depending on the target acoustic impedance also depend on the transducer characteristics. Determination of the electrical impedance may be done by simulation on the basis of known characteristics of the electroacoustic transducer or experiment, or both.
  • the choice of the electroacoustic transducer may be made in view of the desired property that the acoustic impedance in the range of 100-250 Hz is substantially reduced by the approach according to the present invention, compared to the prior art.
  • Simulations show that it is beneficial to have a receiver with at least one of a high force factor (Bl), a high effective area (Sd), low mechanical stiffness, i.e. high mechanical compliance (Cms), low moving mass (Mms).
  • a small DC resistance (Re) and/or a small mechanical friction value (Rms) may be beneficial
  • the design of the volumes (front/back/others) of the electroacoustic transducer and the connections between these and to the environment (front- and back-vents front-back connections etc.) may be influenced by the application taught herein (sensorless control).
  • the purpose of the entire acoustic design, including the speaker, may be to achieve a minimal output impedance.
  • system calibration may include an individualization step in which the frequency dependent, possibly negative shunt impedance (shunt admittance) is calibrated during usage, for example by continuously measuring the electric or acoustic impedance.
  • the shunt control may be steered during usage, for example based on clipping detection and/or instability detection.

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  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Circuit For Audible Band Transducer (AREA)

Claims (13)

  1. Appareil auditif comprenant un écouteur, l'appareil auditif comprenant un transducteur électroacoustique (11) en communication acoustique avec un volume du conduit auditif (3), le transducteur électroacoustique (11) étant capable de transformer un signal électrique entre les bornes (16, 17) en un signal acoustique, l'appareil auditif est équipé pour traiter une entrée de l'appareil auditif en un signal utile, qui est un signal électrique représentant le signal acoustique que l'utilisateur de l'appareil auditif devrait entendre, pour utiliser le signal utile afin d'obtenir un signal d'entrée du transducteur, et pour appliquer le signal d'entrée du transducteur aux bornes (16, 17) du transducteur électroacoustique (11), caractérisé en ce que l'appareil auditif est équipé pour mesurer un signal physique aux bornes (16, 17), en ce que l'appareil auditif est équipé pour déterminer, à partir du signal physique mesuré, un signal de transfert, dans lequel la détermination du signal de transfert comprend une application d'une fonction de transfert d'admittance ou d'une fonction de transfert d'impédance à une quantité dérivée du signal physique mesuré et dans lequel l'appareil auditif est en outre équipé pour utiliser le signal physique mesuré comme une quantité d'entrée pour obtenir le signal d'entrée du transducteur en ajoutant le signal de transfert au signal utile afin d'obtenir le signal d'entrée du transducteur.
  2. L'appareil auditif selon la revendication 2, dans lequel l'écouteur est adapté pour séparer le volume du conduit auditif (3) d'un conduit auditif d'un utilisateur de l'extérieur.
  3. L'appareil auditif selon la revendication 1 ou 2, dans lequel la quantité à laquelle la fonction de transfert d'admittance ou la fonction de transfert d'impédance est appliquée est une différence entre le signal physique mesuré et le signal utile.
  4. L'appareil auditif selon la revendication 3, dans lequel le signal utile et/ou le signal physique mesuré est soumis à un filtrage avant que la différence ne soit faite.
  5. L'appareil auditif selon l'une des revendications précédentes, comprenant un étage de traitement du signal numérique, dans lequel l'étage de traitement du signal numérique est équipé pour appliquer la fonction de transfert d'admittance ou la fonction de transfert d'impédance.
  6. L'appareil auditif selon l'une des revendications précédentes, dans lequel le signal de transfert correspond à une impédance de transfert ou à une admittance de transfert appliquée à la quantité dérivée du signal physique mesuré, dans lequel l'impédance de transfert ou l'admittance de transfert dépend de la fréquence mais est indépendante du temps et/ou dans lequel l'impédance de transfert ou l'admittance de transfert est variable dans le temps et est mise en œuvre par un filtre adaptatif.
  7. L'appareil auditif selon l'une des revendications précédentes, dans lequel la fonction de transfert d'admittance ou la fonction de transfert d'impédance permet au transducteur électroacoustique (11) d'agir comme un réflecteur négatif pour le son dans volume du conduit auditif interne (3).
  8. L'appareil auditif selon l'une des revendications précédentes, dans lequel le signal d'entrée du transducteur est un signal de courant, et dans lequel le signal physique mesuré est une tension entre les bornes.
  9. L'appareil auditif selon la revendication 8, comprenant en outre un étage de conversion analogique tension-courant (32).
  10. Appareil auditif selon la revendication 9, comprenant un étage de traitement du signal numérique, et comprenant en outre un convertisseur numérique-analogique (52), dans lequel une sortie du convertisseur numérique-analogique (52) est connectée à une entrée de l'étage de conversion tension-courant (32), et dans lequel l'étage de traitement du signal numérique est équipé pour additionner le signal de transfert et le signal utile et pour envoyer le résultat à une entrée du convertisseur numérique-analogique (52).
  11. L'appareil auditif selon l'une des revendications 1 à 7, dans lequel le signal d'entrée du transducteur est un signal de tension, et dans lequel le signal physique mesuré est un courant circulant dans l'une des bornes.
  12. L'appareil auditif selon l'une des revendications précédentes, comprenant en outre au moins un microphone externe (41), dans lequel l'entrée de l'appareil auditif comprend un signal mesuré par ce au moins un microphone externe (41).
  13. Procédé de traitement d'un signal dans un appareil auditif comprenant un écouteur et un transducteur électroacoustique (11) en communication acoustique avec un volume du conduit auditif (3), le procédé comprenant les étapes suivantes : traitement d'une entrée de l'appareil auditif en un signal utile étant un signal électrique représentant le signal acoustique que l'utilisateur de l'appareil auditif devrait entendre, utilisation du signal utile pour obtenir un signal d'entrée du transducteur et application du signal d'entrée du transducteur aux bornes (16, 17) du transducteur électroacoustique (11), caractérisé par l'étape supplémentaire de mesurer un signal physique aux bornes (16, 17), de déterminer, à partir du signal physique mesuré, un signal de transfert, la détermination du signal de transfert comprenant d'appliquer une fonction de transfert d'admittance ou une fonction de transfert d'impédance à une quantité dérivée du signal physique mesuré, et d'utiliser le signal physique comme quantité d'entrée pour obtenir le signal d'entrée du transducteur en ajoutant le signal de transfert au signal utile afin d'obtenir le signal d'entrée du transducteur.
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US5267321A (en) 1991-11-19 1993-11-30 Edwin Langberg Active sound absorber
DE102015003855A1 (de) * 2015-03-26 2016-09-29 Carl Von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg Verfahren zum Betreiben eines elektroakustischen Systems und ein elektroakustisches System

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