A zone of quiet based approach to integrated active noise control and noise reduction in hearing AIDS

This paper presents an integrated approach to active noise control and noise reduction in hearing aids which is based on an optimization over a zone of quiet generated by the active noise control. A basic integrated scheme has been introduced previously to tackle secondary path effects and effects of noise leakage through an open fitting. This scheme, however, only takes the sound pressure at the ear canal microphone into account. In practice, it is desired to achieve noise control in a zone not limited to a single point. A scheme based on an average mean squared error criterion over the desired zone of quiet is presented here and compared experimentally with the original scheme.