Parameter selection methods of delay and beamforming for cochlear implant speech enhancement

Speech acquisition by a cochlear implant (CI) is typically performed by a single omnidirectional microphone. In order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of sound collected from the forward direction, the delay beamforming method is applied to satisfy the size and processing limitations. The optimal delay time and weighting parameters, selected by our proposed graphical method, yielded a beam pattern that strongly enhanced speech from the front, while noise from lateral and rear directions were sharply weakened, making the method appropriate for use in CI applications.