A comparison of hearing-aid array processing techniques

Microphone arrays have proven effective in improving speech intelligibility in noise for hearing-impaired listeners, and several array processing techniques have been proposed for hearing aids. Among the signal-processing approaches are classical delay-and-sum beamforming, superdirective arrays, and adaptive arrays. To directly compare the effectiveness of these different processing strategies, a 10-cm-long linear array was built using five uniformly spaced omnidirectional microphones. This array was used in the end-fire orientation to acquire speech and noise signals for a variety of array placements in two representative rooms. Both digital and simulated analog processing techniques were considered, with the array processing implemented in the frequency domain. The performance metric was the steady-state array gain weighted to represent the relative importance of the different frequency regions in understanding speech. The processing comparison indicates that digital systems are more effective than the simulated analog processing, and that both superdirective and adaptive digital array processing can provide more than 9 dB of weighted array gain.