Paper Info
Title
Howling Suppression In Hearing Aids Using Least-Squares Estimation And Perceptually Motivated Gain Control
Abstract
Howling is a significant problem even in digital hearing aids equipped with adaptive feedback cancellation. Among the many causes of howling is the inability of the adaptive filter to track rapid changes in the feedback path. Many systems use howling detectors to detect the start of howling and reduce the hearing aid gain for several seconds to avoid prolonged howling. Unfortunately the inadequate speech pressure levels (SPL) during times when the gain is reduced causes loss of information and reduced intelligibility of speech signals arriving at the patient's ears. This paper presents a new method that switches to a least-squares adaptation scheme with linear complexity at the onset of howling. The method adapts to the altered feedback path quickly and allows the patient to not lose perceivable information. The complexity of the least-squares estimate is reduced by reformulating the least-squares estimate into a Toeplitz system and solving it with a direct Toeplitz solver. In addition, the gain function is changed immediately after howling detection in such a way that the system operates in a stable manner and the distortions caused are not perceived because of temporal masking. Simulation results comparing with a conventional method is presented in the paper to demonstrate the superior howling suppression capabilities of the method.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1109/ICASSP.2006.1661234
2006 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Vols 1-13
Keywords
Field
DocType
detectors,speech,feedback,gain control,speech intelligibility,least square,adaptive filter,loudspeakers,computational complexity,adaptive filters,least squares estimation,temporal masking
Auditory masking,Hearing aid,Computer science,Speech recognition,Adaptive filter,Loudspeaker,Automatic gain control,Intelligibility (communication),Adaptive feedback cancellation,Computational complexity theory
Conference
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
1520-6149
0
0.34
References 
Authors
2
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ashutosh Pandey1254.52
V. John Mathews23811.28