Head Tracking Hearing Aid for Automatic Source Switching

描述（由申请人提供）：Advanced Medical Electronics提出开发一种先进的无线助听器，该助听器可跟踪用户头部运动，并根据用户关注点提供自动音频源切换。拟议的先进助听器将使用户能够在更多样化的对话情况下使用助听器。助听器在嘈杂的环境中表现不佳，因为过滤背景声音的能力有限。无线配套麦克风和消费电子适配器可将音频直接传输到用户的助听器，更好地抵御背景噪音。虽然这些设备已被证明可以改善嘈杂环境中的语音识别，但它们会产生一个源选择控制问题，当存在多个源时，该问题是繁重的并限制了它们的实用性。拟议的增强将允许自动源切换由用户简单地转动他们的头很像一个人与正常的双耳听力会做。助听器行业需要更先进的功能，以鼓励超过75%的已知听力损失患者使用助听器。建议的增强型助听器将使用户能够在常见情况下更有效地使用助听器。头部跟踪将使用集成到助听器中的非常低功率的磁力计来完成，类似于现代智能手机中的磁力计。系统将根据头部朝向的方向自动调整可用来源（包括助听器内部麦克风）的音量。磁力计所需的额外功率将小于正常操作的10%，并且仅在从远程源流式传输音频时消耗。电池寿命不会受到显著影响。在第一阶段，AME将开发和评价一个原型系统。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Advanced Medical Electronics proposes to develop an advanced wireless hearing aid that tracks user head movements and provides automatic audio source switching based on user focus. The proposed advanced hearing aid will enable users to utilize hearing aids in more diversified conversational situations. Hearing aids perform poorly in noisy environments due to a limited ability to filter out background sounds. Wireless companion microphones and consumer electronics adapters stream audio directly to the user's hearing aid and are more immune to background noise. While these devices have been proven to improve speech recognition in noisy environments, they create a source selection control issue that is burdensome and limits their utility when there is more than one source. The proposed enhancement will allow for automatic source switching by the user simply turning their head much like a person with normal binaural hearing would do. The hearing aid industry needs more advanced features such as this to encourage the more than 75% of people with known hearing loss who would benefit from hearing aids to utilize them. The proposed enhanced hearing aid will enable the user to use their hearing aid more effectively in common situations. The head tracking will be done using a very low power magnetometer integrated into the hearing aid similar to the ones found in modern smart phones. The system will automatically adjust the audio volumes from available sources including the hearing aids internal microphones based on which way was the head is facing. The additional power required by the magnetometer will be less than 10% of the normal operation and will only be consumed while streaming audio from a remote source. Battery life will not be significantly impacted. In phase I, AME will develop and evaluate a prototype system.