Patent ID: 9697845
Date: 2017-07-04
CPC Classifications: G10L,H04M

Claim:
1. A user terminal comprising; a loudspeaker component; a microphone component; and an audio signal processing module, the audio signal processing module comprising: an audio reference signal generator configured, prior to establishment of a communication event over a communications network with at least one further user terminal, to generate an audio reference signal with a linearly varying power envelope, and output the audio reference signal to the loudspeaker component for playout; an echo removal module configured to perform echo removal on audio signals received via the microphone component during the communication event; and a detector configured, prior to establishment of the communication event, to: determine characteristics of the audio reference signal; receive an audio signal output from the microphone component, wherein the received audio signal includes echo resulting from the outputted audio reference signal; determine characteristics of the received audio signal; compare the determined characteristics of the audio reference signal with the determined characteristics of the received audio signal to detect a nonlinear echo path of the echo, and configure a component of the audio signal processing module based on said detection.