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(11) | EP 1 017 253 A3 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | Blind source separation for hearing aids |
| (57) An electronic filtering device for performing real-time unmixing of a signal desired
to be recovered by a user of the device, where the desired signal emanates from one
of a plurality of independent signal sources. Two microphones positioned along a common
axis develop first and second electrical input signals in response to reception by
the microphones of acoustic signals from the plurality of independent signal sources.
The common axis of the microphones is controllable in real time by the user to align
the common axis so it points in the direction of the source of the desired signal.
An adaptive unmixing signal processor responsive to the input signals develops output
signals wherein the desired signal is separate from the mixture signal. A preprocessor
may be provided to subject the input signals to one or both of a time delay processing
and a decorrelation processing before their application to the unmixing signal processor,
to enhance recovery of the desired signal. A selected output of the unmixing signal
processor can be applied as an input to a speaker for reproduction, or can be further
processed for signal enhancement by an additional processor before reproduction. |