Adaptive Feedback Control using Improved Variable Step-Size Affine Projection Algorithm for Hearing Aids

The affine projection algorithm (APA) is commonly used for adaptive filtering in acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) due to its higher convergence and tracking rate compared to the conventional normalized least mean squares (NLMS) algorithm, especially for spectrally colored incoming signals. However, its application to adaptive feedback control (AFC) in hearing aids (HAs) is still not common because of the inherent correlation between the loudspeaker and incoming signals as well as the increase in computational complexity. In this paper, we investigate a way to employ a low projection order APA in conjunction with an improved practical variable step-size (IPVSS) for the prediction error method (PEM) based adaptive feedback control in HAs. The proposed approach is evaluated for a speech incoming signal and for a sudden change of the acoustic feedback path. The experimental results show that the proposed approach yields much better performance than a system employing either the upper or the lower fixed step-size used in the IPVSS as well as the PEM using the IPVSS for the NLMS algorithm (PEM-IPVSS-NLMS). By choosing a small projection order for the APA there is only a slight increase in the computational complexity. Moreover, a small amount of frequency shifting (FS) is integrated to further improve the system's performance.