Low delay moving-horizon multiple-description audio coding for wireless hearing aids

In this work, we construct a novel scheme for efficient perceptual coding of audio for robust communication between encoders and wireless hearing aids. To limit the physical size of the hearing aids and to reduce power consumption and thereby increase the lifetime expectancy of the batteries, the hearing aids are constrained to be of low complexity. We therefore provide an asymmetric strategy where most of the computational load is placed at the encoding side. We make use of multiple-description coding. This combats possible erasures on the wireless link between the encoder and the hearing aids without introducing significant delay. Furthermore, we employ psychoacoustically optimized noise-shaping quantizers based on the moving-horizon principle, which exploits a finite prediction horizon.