Multi-channel algorithms for wind noise reduction and signal compensation in binaural hearing aids

This paper contains a new approach for wind noise reduction in binaural hearing aids. This approach combines the ”single-channel low frequency reduction” algorithm [1] and the ”two-channel correlation detector” [2] with a multi-channel binaural hearing aid to compensate the desired signal. The algorithm benefits from the fact that if wind comes from one side, the wind noise mostly occurs in the ear facing away from the wind. As a result of the binaural coupling the signal quality can be improved by the noise reduction and speech compensation. The evaluation compares the introduced algorithms in terms of signal quality. Sentences from the Oldenburger Sentence Test were recorded in an acoustically optimized wind tunnel at different wind speeds and wind directions. The noise quality of the processed audio-files as well as the ease of listening for the speech was tested with a modified MUSHRA test. Furthermore, the overall quality was tested with a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) paired comparison test. For all test conditions, the new algorithm performed better than previous approaches.