Directionality-based speech enhancement for hearing aids

In this work we describe methods for using the directionality of sound energy as a criterion to estimate single- and multichannel linear filters for suppression of diffuse noise and reverberation in a hearing aid application. We compare conservative strategies where direction of arrival is unknown, and more aggressive strategies where the proposed methods can be used to derive a fast acting post-filter for the output of a beamformer. We show that in situations where a target of interest is near to the listener while interfering sources are more distant, simple features that capture the directionality of sound energy can be used to attenuate significant undesired signal energy and can be more effective than a strategy based on noise-floor tracking.