Abstract
Users of cochlear implant systems, that is, of auditory aids which stimulate the auditory nerve at the cochlea electrically, often complain about poor speech understanding in noisy environments. Despite the proven advantages of multimicrophone directional noise reduction systems for conventional hearing aids, only one major manufacturer has so far implemented such a system in a product, presumably because of the added power consumption and size. We present a physically small (intermicrophone distance 7 mm) and computationally inexpensive adaptive noise reduction system suitable for behind-the-ear cochlear implant speech processors. Supporting algorithms, which allow the adjustment of the opening angle and the maximum noise suppression, are proposed and evaluated. A portable real-time device for test in real acoustic environments is presented.
Highlights
Cochlear implant systems, that is, devices which stimulate the auditory nerve directly electrically in the cochlea, have become a successful method of treatment for bilaterally profoundly deaf patients
While speech understanding in quiet environments varies between patients but is often satisfactory for everyday use, insufficient speech understanding in noise is a major difficulty encountered by many users of cochlear implant systems [1, 2]
A different approach to alleviate this problem is the use of directional multimicrophone noise reduction systems [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
Summary
That is, devices which stimulate the auditory nerve directly electrically in the cochlea, have become a successful method of treatment for bilaterally profoundly deaf patients. As the size of the speech processor is perceived by the users [14], we believe that a part of the reluctance of the manufacturers of cochlear implants to implement directional multimicrophone noise reduction systems in their products are concerns regarding additional size, complexity, and power consumption. The aim of this investigation is to show one possibility to build efficient, physically small, flexible, and computationally inexpensive two-microphone noise reduction systems.
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