Abstract: The invention is directed to a single channel mask estimation method capable of improving reverberant speech identification for CI users. The method is based on the energy of the reverberant signal and the residual signal computed from linear prediction (LP) analysis. The mask is estimated by comparing the energy ratio of the two signals at different frequency bins with an adaptive threshold. As the threshold is updated for each frame of speech based on the energy ratios of the reverberant and LP residual signals computed from previous frames, it is amenable for real-time implementation. It can thus be used as a specialized (for reverberant environments) sound coding strategy used for cochlear implant applications.

Abstract: The claimed invention is directed to a real-time noise classification and tuning system for cochlear implant and other hearing device applications. The system is capable of automatically selecting the optimized parameters of a noise suppression algorithm in response to different noisy environments. The feature vector and the classifier deployed in the system to automatically identify the background noise environment are selected so that the computation burden is kept low to achieve a real-time throughput. The results reported herein indicate improvement in speech enhancement when using this intelligent real-time hearing device system.

Abstract: The invention is directed to a single channel mask estimation method capable of improving reverberant speech identification for CI users. The method is based on the energy of the reverberant signal and the residual signal computed from linear prediction (LP) analysis. The mask is estimated by comparing the energy ratio of the two signals at different frequency bins with an adaptive threshold. As the threshold is updated for each frame of speech based on the energy ratios of the reverberant and LP residual signals computed from previous frames, it is amenable for real-time implementation. It can thus be used as a specialized (for reverberant environments) sound coding strategy used for cochlear implant applications.

Abstract: The claimed invention is directed to a real-time noise classification and tuning system for cochlear implant and other hearing device applications. The system is capable of automatically selecting the optimized parameters of a noise suppression algorithm in response to different noisy environments. The feature vector and the classifier deployed in the system to automatically identify the background noise environment are selected so that the computation burden is kept low to achieve a real-time throughput. The results reported herein indicate improvement in speech enhancement when using this intelligent real-time hearing device system.