Patent ID: 8385560

Claim:
A noise canceling and communication system comprising: an in-ear device adapted to fit in an ear canal of a device user and having: i. a passive noise reduction element for reducing external noise entering the ear canal, ii. at least one external microphone for sensing an external acoustic signal outside the ear canal to produce a representative external microphone signal, iii. at least one internal microphone for sensing an internal acoustic signal proximal to a tympanic membrane to produce a representative internal microphone signal, iv. at least one internal sound generator for producing a noise cancellation signal and an acoustic communication signal, both directed towards the tympanic membrane, and v. at least one probe tube for shaping an acoustic response between the internal sound generator and the internal microphone to be relatively constant over a wide audio frequency band; and an external electronics module in communication with the in-ear device for processing the microphone signals using a hybrid feed forward and feedback active noise reduction algorithm to produce the noise cancellation signal, the noise reduction algorithm including at least one noise modeling component based on a transfer function associated with the internal sound generator and at least one of the microphones to automatically adjust the noise cancellation signal for fit and geometry of the ear canal of the user.