Project C1 - MIMO acoustic earpiece for combined equalization, feedback cancellation and noise reduction

Project C1 - MIMO acoustic earpiece for combined equalization, feedback cancellation and noise reduction

Project C1 - MIMO acoustic earpiece for combined equalization, feedback cancellation and noise reduction

The long-term goal of this project is to achieve acoustically transparent speech communication and hearing support by means of a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) earpiece with integrated microphones and receivers (Denk et al., 2017, 2018). The main research question is how to optimally exploit the availability of multiple microphones and receivers in the ear canal and vent to develop combined solutions for sound pressure equalization at the ear drum, for acoustic feedback cancellation, for (active) noise reduction and for occlusion control.

To this end, novel signal processing algorithms as well as electro-acoustic models will be developed that enable to individualize these solutions for each user and take into account the interaction effects between the different objectives.


Figure 1: MIMO earpiece prototype with multiple integrated receivers and microphones (Denk et al., 2017, 2018). Two microphones are located in the so-called core, with one microphone at the inner face pointing towards the eardrum and one microphone at the outer face pointing outwards, whereas the third microphone is located in the concha. Two receivers are located next to the microphones in the core.

This project is based on results obtained in the DFG Research Unit FOR1732 “Individualized Hearing Acoustics”, where different methods for sound pressure equalization and feedback cancellation have been developed and validated (Sankowsky-Rothe et al., 2015; Denk et al., 2017, 2018; Schepker et al., 2017a,b). More specifically, in this project combined solutions for sound pressure equalization, acoustic feedback cancellation and (active) noise reduction will be developed. In addition, active occlusion control will be investigated to counteract the unnatural perception of the own voice that may occur when combining different algorithms. In order to understand the behavior of the considered MIMO earpiece to variations of electro-acoustic components and the individual ear canal, an electro-acoustic model will be developed.

The results of this project will contribute to the development of the demonstrators “System technology for hearing aids I: The acoustically transparent hearing device” and “System technology for hearing aids II: The immersive hearing device”.

Figure 2: Block diagram depicting multi-receiver-multi-microphone signal processing for combined acoustic feedback cancellation and sound pressure equalization and electro-acoustic modeling of the MIMO earpiece (Denk et al., 2017).

References

Publications

2024

  • Ohlenbusch M, Rollwage C, Doclo S (2024) Modeling of speech-dependent own voice transfer characteristics for hearables with in-ear microphones. Acta acustica 8: 28 (13 pages). DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2024032
    Preprint available: 10.48550/arXiv.2310.06554, audio examples available at DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.11371976, data set available at DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10844599
  • Ohlenbusch M, Rollwage C, Doclo S (2024) Multi-microphone noise data augmentation for DNN-based own voice reconstruction for hearables in noisy environments. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP). Seoul, Korea, 14-19.04.2024, pp. 416-420. DOI: 10.1109/ICASSP48485.2024.10447066
    For the data set see DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.11196867
  • Roden R, Sankowsky-Rothe T, Blau M (2024) Analyse an Gehörgängen gemessener akustischer Eingangs- und Transferimpedanzen aus zusammengeführten Datensätzen. Proceedings DAGA 2024 Hannover, 18.-21.03.2024, pp 223-226. https://pub.dega-akustik.de/DAGA_2024/files/upload/paper/246.pdf
  • Wulbusch N, Roden R, Blau M, Chernov A (2024) Bayesian parameter identification in impedance boundary conditions for Helmholtz problems. SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing 46 (4), B422-B447. DOI: 10.1137/23M1591517
  • Xiao T, Doclo S (2024) Effect of target signals and delays on spatially selective active noise control for open-fitting hearables. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP). Seoul, Korea, 14-19.04.2024, pp. 1056-1060. DOI: 10.1109/ICASSP48485.2024.10445843. Preprint available at DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2401.07681.

2023

  • Ohlenbusch M, Rollwage C, Doclo S (2023) Speech-dependent modeling of own voice transfer characteristics for in-ear microphones in hearables. 10th Convention of the European Acoustics Association (Forum Acusticum), 11.-15.09.2023, Turin, Italy, pp 1899-1902. DOI: 10.61782/fa.2023.1030
  • Sankowsky-Rothe T, van de Par S, Blau M (2023) Parametric model of young infants’ eardrum and ear canal impedances supporting immittance measurement results. Part II: Prediction of eardrum and ear canal impedances for frequent pathological middle ear conditions. Acta Acust. 7: 21, 11 pages. DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2023017
  • Wulbusch N, Roden R, Chernov A, Blau M (2023) Using a one-dimensional finite-element approximation of Webster's horn equation to estimate individual ear canal acoustic transfer from input impedances. J Acoust Soc Am 153 (5): 2826-2837. DOI: 10.1121/10.0019378

2022

  • Ohlenbusch M, Rollwage C, Doclo S (2022) Training strategies for own voice Reconstruction in Hearing protection devices using an in-ear microphone. Proc. International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement (IWAENC), Bamberg, Germany, Sep. 2022. DOI: 10.1109/IWAENC53105.2022.9914801
  • Rivera Benois P, Roden R, Blau M, Doclo S (2022) Optimization methods for fixed virtual sensing feedback ANC controllers targeting in-ear headphones. Proceedings of the 24th International Congress on Acoustics. Gyeongju, Korea, 24.-28.10.2022, ABS-0788 (6 pages)
    https://www.ica2022korea.org/data/Proceedings_A01.pdf
  • Rivera Benois P, Roden R, Blau M, Doclo S (2022) Optimization of a fixed virtual sensing feedback ANC controller for in-ear headphones with multiple loudspeakers. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Singapore, Singapore, 23.-27.05.2022, pp 8717-8721. DOI: 10.1109/ICASSP43922.2022.9746327
  • Sankowsky-Rothe T, van de Par S, Blau M (2022) Parametric model of young infants’ eardrum and ear canal impedances supporting immittance measurement results. Part I: Development of the model. Acta Acust. 6: 53, 18 pages. DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2022047
  • Schepker H, Denk F, Kollmeier B, & Doclo S (2022) Robust single- and multi-loudspeaker least-squares-based equalization for hearing devices. EURASIP J Audio Speech Music Proc 2022:15, 14 pages. DOI: 10.1186/s13636-022-00247-6

2021

  • Blau M, Budnik A, Fallahi M, Steffens H, Ewert SD, van de Par S (2021) Toward realistic binaural auralizations - perceptual comparison between measurement and simulation-based auralizations and the real room for a classroom scenario. Acta Acust 5: 8, 1-13. DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2020034
  • Rivera Benois P, Roden R, Blau M, Doclo S (2021) Sound pressure minimization at the ear drum for in-ear ANC headphones, in Proc. International Congress on Sound and Vibration (ICSV), Prague, Czech Republic, Jul. 2021. arXiv preprint:
    arxiv.org/abs/2105.06894
  • Roden R, Gräfen V, Rivera Benois P, Doclo S, Blau M (2021) Bewertung der richtungsabhängigen Schalleintragskomponenten im individuellen Restgehörgang bei undichtem Sitz eines offenen Im-Ohr-Sytems hinsichtlich akustischer Transparenz. Proceedings DAGA 2021, Wien 15.-18.08.2021, pp 320-323. https://pub.dega-akustik.de/DAGA_2021/data/articles/000650.pdf

2020

  • Bederna F, Schepker H, Rollwage C, Doclo S, Pusch A, Bitzer J, Rennies J (2020) Adaptive compressive onset-enhancement for improved speech intelligibility in noise and reverberation. Proc. Interspeech 2020, 1351-1355. DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2020-2640
  • Denk F, Schepker H, Doclo S, Kollmeier B (2020) Acoustic transparency in hearables - technical evaluation. J Audio Eng Soc 68 (7/8), 508–521. DOI: 10.17743/jaes.2020.0042
  • Roden R, Blau M (2020) The IHA database of human geometries including torso, head and complete outer ears for acoustic research. 49th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering, Inter-Noise, Seoul. Link to the paper. Data set available at DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5528766
  • Sankowsky-Rothe T, Schepker H, Doclo S, Blau M (2020) Acoustic feedback path modeling for hearing aids: Comparison of physical positionbased and position independent models. J Acoust Soc Am 147 (1): 85-100. DOI: 10.1121/10.0000509
  • Schepker H, Denk F, Kollmeier B, Doclo S (2020) Acoustic transparency in hearables - perceptual sound quality evaluations. J Audio Eng Soc 68 (7/8), 495–507. DOI: 10.17743/jaes.2020.0045
  • Schepker H, Nordholm S, Doclo S (2020) Acoustic feedback suppression for multi-microphone hearing devices using a soft-constrained null-steering beamformer. IEEE/ACM Trans Audio Speech Lang Proc 28: 929-940. DOI: 10.1109/TASLP.2020.2975390

2019

  • Denk F, Lettau M, Schepker H, Doclo S, Roden R, Blau M, Bach JH, Wellmann J, Birger Kollmeier B (2019) A one-size-fits-all earpiece with multiple microphones anddrivers for hearing device research. 2019 AES International Conference on Headphone Technology, August 27.-29,8.2019, San Francisco, CA, US. http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=20523
  • Schepker H, Denk F, Roden R, Blau M, Kollmeier B, Doclo S (2019) Acoustically transparent sound presentation in hearing devices: Algorithms,devices and models. ICA, 9.-13-9-2019, Aachen/Germany. Link to the paper
  • Schepker H, Denk F, Kollmeier B, Doclo S (2019) Subjective sound quality evaluation of an acoustically transparent hearing device. AES Conference on Headphone Technology, 27-20.08.2019, San Francisco, CA, US. Link to the paper
  • Schepker H, Denk F, Roden R, Blau M, Kollmeier B, Doclo S (2019) Acoustically transparent sound presentation in hearing devices: Algorithms,devices and models. ICA, 9.-13-9-2019, Aachen/Germany. Link to the paper
  • Schepker H, Nordholm SE, Tran LTT, Doclo S (2019) Null-steering beamformer-based feedback cancellation for multi-microphone hearing aids with incoming signal preservation. IEEE/ACM Trans Audio Speech Lang Proc 27(4): 679-691. DOI: 10.1109/TASLP.2019.2892234
  • Vogl S, Blau M (2019) Individualized prediction of the sound pressure at the eardrum for an earpiece with integrated receivers and microphones. J Acoust Soc Am 145: 917-930.
    DOI: 10.1121/1.5089219
  • Schepker H, Doclo S (2019) Active feedback suppression for hearing devices exploiting multiple loudspeakers. IEEE Workshop on Application of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, 20.-23.10.2019, New Paltz, USA. DOI: 10.1109/WASPAA.2019.8937187

2018

  • Gößling N, Doclo S (2018) Relative transfer function estimation exploiting spatially separated microphones in a diffuse noise field. Proc. International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement (IWAENC), pp. 146-150. *Best student paper award*
    DOI: 10.1109/IWAENC.2018.8521295
  • Gößling N, Doclo S (2018) RTF-based binaural MVDR beamformer exploiting an external microphone in a diffuse noise dield. Proc. ITG Conference on Speech Communication, Oldenburg, Germany, Oct. 2018, pp. 106-110. ISBN: 978-3-8007-4767-2. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8578004
  • Gößling N, Marquardt D, Merks I, Zhang T, Doclo S (2018) Optimal binaural LCMV beamforming in complex acoustic scenarios: theoretical and practical insights. Proc. International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement (IWAENC), Tokyo, Japan, Sep. 2018, pp. 381-385. DOI: 10.1109/IWAENC.2018.8521355
  • Schepker H, Denk F, Kollmeier B, Doclo S (2018) Multi-loudspeaker equalization for acoustic transparency in a custom hearing device. 13th ITG-Symposium Speech Communication, pp 36-40. ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8577990
  • Schepker H, Tran LTT, Nordholm S, Doclo S (2018) Acoustic feedback cancellation for hearing aids using a fixed RTF-constrained null-steering beamformer. International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement (IWAENC), Tokyo, Japan, pp. 431-435. DOI: 10.1109/IWAENC.2018.8521345
(Changed: 03 Dec 2024)  | 
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