SPEECH-ADAPTIVE PREDICTIVE CODING SYSTEM

Abstract: The invention relates to a speech-adaptive predictive coding system, an encoding apparatus, a decoding appar­ atus and an error correcting method for such system. The encoding apparatus comprises a A/D converter, a delay circuit, a quantizer, a predictor, a predictor coefficient and residual power extractor circuit and a multiplexer. The decoder comprises a multiplexer (11), an amplifier (12), a predictor (13), a restoring circuit (14), a D/A converter (15), a burst error detector (16), a delay circuit (17), a switching circuit (18), and a reflected binary code decoder (19). The speech-adaptive predictive coding system is capable of reproducing speech-signals with high quality.

Description: The present invention relates to a high-efficiency speech-adaptive predictive coding system including a speech encoding/decoding apparatus for use in pulse code-modulation (PCM) communications system, and more particularly to a burst error correction circuit for speech encoding/decoding apparatuses using a speech-adaptive predictive coding system. The invention also relates to a decoding apparatus and an error correcting method for such a system. For the prevention of speech quality deterioration owing to errors in information bit sequences in this sort of high-efficiency speech encoding/decoding apparatus, typically the following two methods are known. The first uses error correction codes. This method, though effective against random errors and short burst errors, has to use codes of low efficiency (the number of information bits/block-length) when used on a transmission path where great fluctuations occur over time and random errors and long burst errors also arise, such as in mobile communication. This results in a greater number of redundant bits with a diminishing effect on the advantage of using a high-efficiency speech coding system. The second relies on waveform interpolation. Utilizing the quasi-periodic nature of the waveforms of speech (especially voiced), this method interpolates the waveform prior by one pitch period (hereinafter referred to as waveform interpolation) when detecting a burst error, which can be detected with comparative ease. (See FIGS. 1(A) and 1(B).) This second method is used for analog speech transmission or the transmission of speech waveforms alone, such as in a PCM communications system. However, the method has to be improved if it is to be applied to an encoding apparatus, such as one of an adaptive predictive encoding system in which parameter information also has to be transmitted. It also requires the detection of the pitch period and accordingly a circuit of greater dimensions. Though not prior art, there is another method inferrable from the second technique. It utilizes the time-correlation of speech (the relative slowness of the fluctuations of formant and sound intensity) to substitute the prior bits for parameter information as well. This method will be hereinafter referred to as word-by-word parameter interpolation. This interpolation method replaces all the bits constituting a parameter with the bits of the prior frame even if only a few of the bits are erroneous. Therefore, the frequency of parameter replacements (hereinafter referred to as the parameter interpolation rate or simply the interpolation rate) will become too great if each parameter consists of a large number of bits. Especially where this technique is used in combination with the first method to achieve transmission of interleaved signals after the coding of error correction, burst errors will be randomized. If the errors are within the error correcting capacity of the apparatus, there will be no problem. But, if errors beyond the capacity are detected by the burst error detecting circuit, there will arise such an awkward situation that, for example, every parameter includes one error bit and therefore all the parameters must be interpolated or replaced with all the parameters of the preceding frame. In the conventional system, either the natural binary code or the folded binary code has usually been employed for the binary encoding of the quantized level of parameters. In these coding systems, replacement of only the error bits, or the bits highly likely to be erroneous, with the bits of the respectively preceding frames cannot correct these error bits and therefore, the quality of the decoded speech signal deteriorates, which will be described in detail later. In ICASSP 80 - PROCEEDINGS-IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH & SIGNAL PROCESSING, Vol. 2 of 3, New York, USA, April 1980, pages 530-534, techniques for improving the robustness of an adaptive predictive coder in the presence of channel errors are described. In these techniques forward error correction is applied to a selected subset of the transmitted parameter bits in order to reduce the effects of simple errors. At the receiver, smoothing strategies are employed to replace those parameters in which errors could be detected but not corrected and to cope with situations in which entire packets are lost. In the error correction all members of a parameter group are replaced by the members used in the previous frame. An object of the present invention, intended to solve the technical problems staged above, is to provide a speech-adaptive predictive coding system, a decoding apparatus for such a system, and an error correcting method for use with such a system, which are capable of reproducing a high quality speech signal. Another object of the present invention is to provide a speech-adaptive predictive coding system employing the reflected binary code for the parameter information of the adaptive predictive coding. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a speech-adaptive predictive coding system employing the reflected binary code, and error correction and interleaving methods to provide a higher quality speech signal. These objects are achieved by the features of the claims. The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the detailed description hereunder taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein: FIGS. 1A and 1B are waveform diagrams for describing a waveform interpolation method of the prior art, which has already been described earlier; FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a preferred embodiment of the speech encoding apparatus according to the present invention; FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a preferred embodiment of the speech decoding apparatus according to the invention; FIG. 4 is a diagram for describing the bit-by-bit parameter interpolation method according to the invention; FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating another preferred embodiment of the speech encoding/decoding apparatus according to the invention; and FIG. 6 is a diagram for describing error correction encoding and interleaving by the apparatus illustrated in FIG. 5. The table below shows the relationship between the reflected binary and natural binary codes. The former, also known as Gray code, is usually employed for multi-value transmission of binary information. As can be seen from the table, in the reflected binary code, the bit patterns of any two codes corresponding to the adjacent quantized levels differ from each other by only one bit (i.e., the Hamming distance is 1). For more details on the reflected binary code, reference is made to Hiroshi Inose, An Introduction to Digital Integrated Communications Systems , published by UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO PRESS, 1979, pp. 22 - 23. Utilizing the reflected binary code, the apparatus according to the present invention decodes the parameters for the adaptive predictive decoding in the reflected binary way. The apparatus interpolates with the bits of the respectively preceding frames only those bits which are either definitely erroneous or highly likely to be erroneous without taking into account the divisions between the bits constituting each parameter (hereinafter referred to as bit-by-bit parameter interpolation). As mentioned above, the reflected binary code does not vary significantly its binary-encoded bit patterns with respect to the quantization levels. As a result, high-quality speech can be restored even over a transmission path with a high error rate. Referring now to FIG. 2, the encoding apparatus comprises an analog/digital (A/D) converter 1, a delay circuit 2, a quantizer 3, a predictor 4, a predictor coefficient and residual power (PCRP) extractor circuit 5 and a multiplexer 6. Multiplexer 6 multiplexes a predicted residual bits sequence x2 and a parameter information sqeuence x3 to provide a multiplexed transmitting bit sequence x5. The apparatus also includes an amplifier 7 having a gain of G⁻¹ equal to (residual power)⁻¹, another amplifier 8 having a gain of G and a circuit 9 for the reflected binary encoding of parameter information sequence x3, which are the quantization levels of the predictor coefficients and residual power. In FIG. 2, a reference character x1 represents a sampled sequence of a speech signal and x4, a reflected binary-encoded sequence of parameter information bits. The circuits 1 through 8 referred to above are common with speech-adaptive predictive coding apparatuses by the prior art, while the reflected binary encoder circuit 9 is a new addition by the present invention. This circuit 9 will output, if for instance the number of quantization bits is four, reflected binary codes in accordance with the foregoing table or, if the number is not four, will also output reflected binary codes in accordance with a similar table. For further details on the speech-adaptive predictive encoding part including the circuits 1 through 8, which is common with similar apparatuses by the prior art, reference is made, for example, to Bishnu S. Atal, "Predictive Coding of Speech at Low Bit Rates" , in IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. COM-30, No. 4, April 1982, pp. 600 ∼ 614. In FIG. 3, a demultiplexer 11 separates a multiplexed received bit sequence y1 into a predicted residual bit sequence y2 and a parameter information bit sequence y3. The predicted residual bit sequence y2 is amplified by an amplifier 12 adjusted to a gain (G) equal to that of the residual power by a predictor coefficient and residual power (PCRP) restoring circuit 14. The output of this amplifier 12 is added to the output of a predictor circuit 13 which is under the control of the PCRP restoring circuit 14. The added sequence is supplied to a digital/analog (D/A) converter 15, which provides a demodulated speech output. For more details on the speech-adaptive predictive decoding part including the foregoing circuits 11 through 15, which is common with similar apparatuses by the prior art, reference is made, for instance, to Atal's paper cited above. A burst error detector circuit 16 detects any burst error in the received bit sequence y1 with the received signal power or out-band noise power y4, and provides a burst error detection signal y5. A switching circuit 18 selects either the parameter information bit sequence y3 of the current frame or a parameter information bit sequence y7, which was selected one frame before. A delay circuit 17 stores with one frame's lag a parameter information bit sequence y6 selected by the switching circuit 18, and outputs the parameter information bit sequence y7 of the preceding frame. A reflected binary decoder circuit 19 supplies the PCRP restoring circuit 14 with a decoded parameter information signal y8 obtained by the reflected binary decoding of the parameter information bit sequence y6. The foregoing circuits 16 through 19 are new additions by the present invention, intended to keep the speech quality from being adversely affected by any burst error. The switching circuit 18 achieves bit-by-bit parameter interpolation by selecting the parameter information bit sequence y7 of the preceding frame if a burst error is detected or the parameter information bit sequence y3 of the current frame if no burst error is detected. The operation of this switching circuit 18 will be described below with reference to FIG. 4, of which (A) shows the parameter information bit sequences of the (n-1)-th and n-th frames, where a0, b0 and so on are bits of either "0" or "1". In the n-th frame, where no burst error is detected as to its first five bits a0', a1', a2', a3' and a4', the switching circuit 18 selects the parameter information bit sequence y3 and, therefore, provides the received bit sequence as it is. Since a burst error is detected at the next three bits a5', b0' and b1', the switching circuit 18 selects the parameter information sequence y7, and outputs the bits a5, b0, and b1, which are in respectively the same positions in the preceding frame. With no burst error detected at b2', b3' ...., the switching circuit 18 again selects the parameter information bit sequence y3, and provides the received bit sequence as it is. This bit sequence is shown in FIG. 4(B). The reflected binary decoder circuit 19 performs an operation reverse to the reflected binary encoder circuit 9 of the encoding apparatus, and emerges the parameter information signal y8, which is the quantized level of the parameters. Meanwhile, by the word-by-word parameter interpolation method referred to earlier, as shown in FIG. 4(C), any error occurring in a given word would necessitate the interpolation of the whole word, involving the problem of an excessive parameter interpolation rate. Next will be described the effectiveness of the bit-by-bit parameter interpolation by the reflected binary coding according to the present invention. The variations of parameters in a constant speech period are not so marked, but they do vary by one level or so as a result of quantization. It is supposed here that the quantization level q n-1 is 7 in the (n-1)-th frame and q n is 8 in the n-th frame. The natural and reflected binary codes for q n-1 = 7 are (0111) and (0100), respectively, and those for q n = 8, (1000) and (1100), respectively. The variation of the quantized level from 7 to 8 corresponds to that of the natural binary code from (0111) to (1000), resulting in a wholly different bit pattern, which makes bit-by-bit interpolation impossible. In contrast, the corresponding variation of the reflected binary code is from (0100) to (1100), the latter's bit pattern being identical with the former's except for a single bit. Therefore, with these reflected binary codes, an error in any of the three less significant bits could be corrected by bit-by-bit interpolation to achieve proper decoding of the quantization level. Even if the most significant bit is an error bit, the quantization level q n after the interpolation will be 7, different from the correct value by only 1, and the difference thus will have no significantly adverse effect. A second preferred embodiment of the present invention involves a component to add an error correction code to the parameter sequence in addition to the first embodiment. The block diagram of this second embodiment is illustrated in FIG. 5. In FIG. 5, parameter information, after being converted into a random error correction code by an error correction encoder 61, is interleaved by an interleaving circuit 62 for transmission. A received bit sequence, conversely, is deinterleaved by a deinterleaving circuit 63 before being fed to an error correction circuit 64. If the burst error detected by a burst error detector 66 can be corrected, the sequence will be corrected by this circuit 64, or if it is beyond the correcting capacity of the circuit 64, will undergo bit-by-bit parameter interpolation in a parameter interpolation circuit 65 at the next stage. The operation of this second preferred embodiment will be now described in more specific terms with reference to FIG. 6. It is supposed that, as shown in FIG. 6(A), parameters 1 and 2 and parameters 3 and 4 are respectively combined into one block to undergo single-bit error correction encoding. The bit sequence after interleaving is shown in FIG. 6(B) and that after deinterleaving, in FIG. 6(C). Any burst error on the transmission path is randomized by deinterleaving as shown in FIG. 6(C). In this example, two errors are detected in the single block, and there is no guarantee of faultless correction because of single-bit error correction coding. If word-by-word interpolation is performed as referred to earlier, all of parameters 1 through 4 will be interpolated, but the bit-by-bit parameter interpolation according to the present invention would permit the information carried by correct bits to be used as it is. A third conceivable embodiment would have a waveform interpolating function, described above as the prior art, for burst errors in the residual signal sequence in addition to the first or second preferred embodiment. Although errors in the residual signal sequence affect the speech quality less than parameter errors and, moreover, this embodiment has the disadvantage of a somewhat complex circuit for pitch period detection, it can be highly effective where the error rate is high. As hitherto described, the present invention has the advantage of being able to prevent speech quality deterioration owing to burst errors in a speech-adaptive predictive encoding/decoding apparatus without decreasing the transmission efficiency of signals. This is done by adding a circuit for converting parameter information into reflected binary codes and, upon detection of a burst error, achieving bit-by-bit parameter interpolation.

Claims: A speech-adaptive predictive coding system including an encoding apparatus and a decoding apparatus, said encoding apparatus comprising means (5) for extracting a predictor coefficient and a residual power for each frame from a speech signal, means (4, 7, 3, 8) responsive to the predictor coefficient and residual power from said extracting means (5) for providing a predicted residual sequence for each frame from said speech signal by an adaptive predictive coding method, and means (6) for multiplexing said predicted residual sequence and parameter information representing said predictor coefficient and said residual power to produce a multiplexed signal sequence; and said decoding apparatus comprising means (11) for separating said multiplexed signal sequence into said predicted residual sequence and said parameter information representing said predictor coefficient and said residual power, and means (12, 13, 14) responsive to said residual sequence, said predictor coefficient and said residual power for producing a reproduced speech signal, characterized in that said encoding apparatus further comprises means (9) disposed between said extracting means (5) and said multiplexing means (6) for converting said predictor coefficient and said residual power into a reflected binary code, said reflected binary code being applied to said multiplexing means (6) as said parameter information, and said decoding apparatus further comprising means (19) for regenerating said predictor coefficient and said residual power from said parameter information converted into said reflected binary code, and means (16, 17, 18) disposed between said separating means (11) and said regenerating means (19) for interpolating said reflected binary code with a preceding reflected binary code of a preceding frame on a bit-by-bit basis, said interpolating means (16, 17, 18) comprising a burst error detector (16) for detecting a burst error in a multiplexed signal to produce an error detection signal, replacing means (18) responsive to said error detection signal for replacing an error bit in said reflected binary code from said separating means (11) by the corresponding bit in the preceding reflected binary code of the preceding frame, and a delay circuit (17) for delaying the output of said replacing means (18) by a period of said frame to deliver said preceding reflected binary code. A decoding apparatus for a speech-adaptive predictive coding system, comprising: means (11) for separating a multiplexed bit sequence into a predicted residual sequence and a parameter information sequence representative of a predictor coefficient and a residual power, and means (12, 13, 14) responsive to said predicted residual sequence and said parameter information sequence for reproducing a speech signal by an adaptive predictive decoding method, characterized in that said parameter information sequence is coded by a reflected binary code, and said decoding apparatus further comprises means (16, 17, 18) for correcting said parameter information sequence coded into the reflected binary code by a preceding parameter information sequence coded into the reflected binary code on a bit-by-bit basis, said correcting means (16, 17, 18) comprising an error detector (16) for detecting an error in said multiplexed bit sequence to produce an error detection signal, selecting means (18) responsive to said error detection signal for selecting a bit in said preceding parameter information sequence coded into the reflected binary code in place of an error bit in said parameter information sequence coded into the reflected binary code, and delay means (17) for delaying the output of said selecting means (18) by a frame period to produce said preceding parameter information sequence coded into the reflected binary code. An error correcting method for a speech-adaptive predictive coding system, comprising the steps of: producing a predicted residual sequence and a parameter information sequence representative of a prediction coefficient and a residual power from a speech signal; multiplexing said predicted residual sequence and the parameter information sequence to produce a multiplexed sequence; transmitting said multiplexed sequence; separating the transmitted sequence into a predictor residual sequence and a parameter information sequence; and decoding the separated predictor residual sequence in response to the parameter information sequence to provide a speech signal, characterized by further comprising the steps of: converting the parameter information sequence produced by said producing step into a reflected binary code, said reflected binary code being applied to said multiplexing step as said parameter information sequence; and correcting the separated parameter information sequence converted into said reflected binary code by a preceding parameter information sequence converted into said reflected binary code on a bit-by-bit basis, said correcting step further comprising the steps of: detecting a burst error in said transmitted sequence to produce an error detection signal; delaying the separated parameter information sequence converted into said reflected binary code to produce said preceding parameter information sequence; and replacing an error bit in said separated parameter information sequence with the corresponding bit in said preceding parameter information sequence in response to said error detection signal.

Inventors: SATO, TOSHIFUMI
Applicants: NEC CORPORATION
Application year: 1984
Main classification: H04B14
IPC codes: H04B1, G10L19, G10L13, H04B14