Methods and apparatus for improving speech understanding in a large crowd

1. A system for improving speech understanding in noisy environments, comprising:

a central processing station that includes processing circuitry and wireless communication circuitry;

a plurality of hearing aids for wearing by a plurality of users, wherein each hearing aid includes an input transducer, an output transducer, processing circuitry, and a wireless transceiver for communicating with the central processing station;

wherein at least one of the plurality of hearing aids is configured to act as a target hearing aid adapted to be worn by a first user;

wherein at least one of the plurality of hearing aids is configured to act as a source hearing aid adapted to be worn by a second user;

wherein the source hearing aid is configured to extract speech spoken by a user of the source hearing aid as received by its input transducer and transmit the extracted speech signals to the central processing station;

wherein the central processing station is configured to perform hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for the target hearing aid on the received extracted speech signals and transmit the compensated signals to the target hearing aid; and,

wherein the target hearing aid is configured to decode the compensated signals received from the central processing station and play back the decoded signals through its output transducer.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the processing circuitry of the central processing station is further configured to performs hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for the target hearing aid on audio signals received from one or more microphones that are not incorporated into hearing aids and transmit the compensated signals to the target hearing aid.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the central processing station is configured to receive encoded audio signals from a plurality of audio sources that includes one or more additional source hearing aids or microphones not incorporated into hearing aids, configured to perform hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for the target hearing aid on the received encoded audio signals, and configured to transmit the compensated signals to the target hearing aid.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the central processing station is configured to process the encoded audio signals received from the plurality of audio sources that emphasizes a particular audio source according to a preference selected by a user of the target hearing aid.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the central processing station is configured to perform hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for a plurality of target hearing aids on encoded audio signals received from one or more source hearing aids or microphones not incorporated into hearing aids and transmit the compensated signals to each of the target hearing aids.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein a hearing aid of the plurality is configured to enter a cooperative mode in which it acts as either a target hearing aid or a source hearing aid upon selection by the user of the hearing aid operating a remote unit.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein, when acting as a target hearing aid, the processing circuitry of the hearing aid is configured to decode the audio signal received from the central processing station and sum the decoded audio signal with a processed audio signal generated by its own input transducer.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein, when acting as a target hearing aid, the processing circuitry of the hearing aid is configured to decode the audio signal received from the central processing station and output the decoded audio signal through its output transducer while disabling processing of audio signals generated by its own input transducer.

9. A central processing station for improving speech understanding by hearing aid users, comprising:

processing circuitry and wireless communication circuitry for communicating with a source hearing aids adapted to be worn by a first user and a target hearing aid adapted to be worn by a second user;

wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive extracted speech signals from the source hearing aid corresponding to speech spoken by the first user, perform hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for the target hearing aid on the received extracted speech signals, and transmit the compensated signals to the target hearing aid for decoding and playing back by the target hearing aid.

10. The central processing station of claim 9 wherein the processing circuitry is configured to perform hearing loss compensation according to hearing loss parameters specified for a plurality of target hearing aids on the received encoded audio signals and transmit the compensated encoded audio signals to the target hearing aids for decoding and playing back by each target hearing aid.

11. The central processing station of claim 9 wherein the processing circuitry is configured to allow registration from a hearing aid for acting as either a source hearing aid or a target hearing aid.

12. A method, comprising:

extracting a hearing aid user's speech signal using the microphone or microphones in a first hearing aid acting as a source hearing aid and adapted to be worn by a first user;

wirelessly transmitting the extracted speech signals to a central processing station;

operating the central processing station to enhance the extracted speech signals from the source hearing aid by processing the extracted speech signals based on provided hearing loss parameters from a second hearing aid acting as a target hearing aid adapted to be worn by a second user and

wirelessly transmitting the enhanced speech signals to the target hearing aid for playback.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the extracted speech signals are additionally generated by and transmitted from microphones not incorporated into hearing aids.

14. The method of claim 12 further comprising the target hearing aid playing back the received enhanced speech signals summed with a processed audio signal generated by its own input transducer.

15. The method of claim 12 further comprising the target hearing aid playing back the received enhanced speech signals while disabling processing of audio signals generated by its own input transducer.

16. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

operating the central processing station to receive extracted speech signals from a plurality of source hearing aids; and,

processing the extracted speech signals in a manner that emphasizes extracted speech signals from a particular one of the plurality of source hearing aids according to a preference selected by a user of the target hearing aid.