Patent ID: 6289309
Filing Date: 2001-09-11
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
A speech enhancement method which processes an input signal including both speech components and noise components to produce a noise-reduced output signal, the speech enhancement method comprising the steps of:receiving the input signal;segmenting the input signal into frames;applying a spectral transformation to the input signal to obtain respective spectral representations of each frame of the input signal;identifying frames that include speech components;estimating respective noise components of the respective spectral representations of the frames of the input signal using a time-varying forgetting factor that reduces any contribution to the estimated noise components from data frames that exhibit rapid changes in signal power relative to earlier received data frames; wherein the spectral representations of the frames of the input signal used to estimate the respective noise components exclude the frames that include speech components;reducing, in magnitude, the spectral representations of each frame by the estimated noise components to produce noise-reduced spectral representations of each frame.