A Variable Step-Size Adaptive Feedback Cancellation Algorithm based on GSAP in Digital Hearing Aids

Acoustic feedback is perceived as whistling or howling, which is a major complaint of hearing-aids users. Acoustic feedback cancellation is important in hearing-aids because acoustic feedback degrades performance of the hearing aid device by reducing maximum insertion gain. Adaptive systems for estimate acoustic feedback path and feedback suppression algorithms have been proposed in order to solve this problem. A typical feedback cancellation algorithm is LMS(least mean squares) because of its computational efficiency. However it has problem of convergence performance in high correlated input signal. In this paper, we propose a new variable step-size normalized LMS(least mean squares) algorithm using VAD(voice activity detection) to overcome the limitation of the LMS algorithm. The VAD algorithm is GSAP(global speech absence probability) and the feedback cancellation algorithm is normalized LMS. The proposed algorithm applies different step-size between voice and non-voice using VAD, for high stability, fast convergence speed and low misalignment when correlated inputs, such as speech. The result of simulation with white noise mixed speech signal, the proposed algorithm shows high performance then traditional algorithm in terms of stability, convergence speed and misalignment.