Multi-channel self-steering microphone arrays for hearing aid applications enable the hearing impaired user to follow conversations coming from other directions than the front direction. Binaural connections between left and right hearing aids allow for (i) the estimation of the direction of arrival (DOA) and thus for automatic beam-steering, (ii) a higher noise reduction due to a greater number of sensors, and (iii) the preservation or reconstruction of binaural cues that can be used by the hearing impaired listener for object segregation. Since the microphones are placed near the human head, diffraction and shadowing effects have to be incorporated into the beamformer design as well as into the DOA estimator.

In this contribution a combined system of DOA estimation and a head-worn 6-channel binaural noise reduction scheme is presented and evaluated using perceptual measures that are based on auditory models.