An adaptive occlusion canceller for hearing aids

This paper presents an adaptive active noise-control system to reduce the occlusion effect in unvented hearing aids. The proposed system uses a secondary microphone facing inside the ear canal to compare the real acoustic field with the desired one, generating an anti-phase estimate of the occlusion signal. As a result, there is a reduction in the discomfort associated with the occlusion effect. This feature is of particular interest to hearing aid users with severe to profound deafness. Results from objective and subjective experiments by using a real prototype with volunteers are presented, showing the functionality and performance of the proposed architecture.