A microphone array for hearing aids

A directional acoustic receiving system is constructed in the form of a necklace including an array of two or more microphones mounted on a housing supported on the chest of a user by a conducting loop encircling the user’s neck. Signal processing electronics contained in the same housing receives and combines the microphone signals in such a manner as to provide an amplified output signal which emphasizes sounds of interest arriving in a direction forward of the user. The amplified output signal drives the supporting conducting loop to produce a representative magnetic field. An electroacoustic transducer including a magnetic field pick‐up coil for receiving the magnetic field is mounted in on the user’s ear and generates an acoustic signal representative of the sound of interest. The microphone output signals are weighted (scaled) and combined to achieve desired spatial directivity responses. The weighting coefficients are determined by an optimization process. By bandpass filtering the weighted microph...