Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US5272695?dq=6,163,776
Timestamp: 2017-04-26 19:54:40
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Patent US5272695 - Subband echo canceller with adjustable coefficients using a series of step sizes - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inPatentsA received input signal and an echo signal resulting from the passage of the received input signal through an echo path are both analyzed or divided into a plurality of common subbands. The received input signal in each subband is supplied to an estimated echo path provided in the subband, by which it...http://www.google.com/patents/US5272695?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US5272695 - Subband echo canceller with adjustable coefficients using a series of step sizesAdvanced Patent SearchTry the new Google Patents, with machine-classified Google Scholar results, and Japanese and South Korean patents.Publication numberUS5272695 APublication typeGrantApplication numberUS 08/756,622Publication dateDec 21, 1993Filing dateSep 9, 1991Priority dateSep 14, 1990Fee statusPaidPublication number08756622, 756622, US 5272695 A, US 5272695A, US-A-5272695, US5272695 A, US5272695AInventorsShoji Makino, Yoichi Haneda, Yutaka KanesaOriginal AssigneeNippon Telegraph And Telephone CorporationExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (6), Non-Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (106), Classifications (9), Legal Events (4) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetSubband echo canceller with adjustable coefficients using a series of step sizes
US 5272695 AAbstract
A received input signal and an echo signal resulting from the passage of the received input signal through an echo path are both analyzed or divided into a plurality of common subbands. The received input signal in each subband is supplied to an estimated echo path provided in the subband, by which it is rendered into an echo replica signal. The echo replica signal is subtracted, by a subtractor provided in each subband, from the echo signal in the same subband as the echo replica signal to obtain a residual echo signal. The residual echo signals in the respective subbands are synthesized into a full-band residual echo signal. The estimated echo path in each subband is formed by a digital FIR filter and its filter coefficients are calculated by a coefficient calculation part in the subband, based on the received input signal, the residual echo signal and a step size matrix. The filter coefficients are iteratively updated so that the residual echo signal in each subband may be minimized. The step size matrix is used to define the step size of the filter coefficients and is determined by an acoustic field characteristics calculation part, based on the variation characteristics of an impulse response of the echo path in each subband.
1. An echo canceller comprising:first subband analysis means wherein a received input signal to be provided on an echo path is analyzed into N subbands, N being an integer equal to or greater than 2; N estimated echo path means formed by digital filters through which said N subband-analyzed received input signals are passed to obtain N subband echo replica signals; second subband analysis means wherein an echo signal resulting from the transmission of said received input signal via said echo path is analyzed into said N subbands; N subtracting means which subtract, from said N subband-analyzed echo signals, corresponding ones of said N subband echo replica signals to obtain N subband residual echo signals; subband synthesis means for synthesizing said N subband residual echo signals into a full band residual echo signal; and N coefficient calculation means each supplied with one of said N subband received input signals and that one of said N subband residual echo signals corresponding thereto, for calculating coefficients of one of said N digital filters, said coefficients of said N digital filters being provided to said N estimated echo paths; said coefficient calculation means in each subband being operative to iteratively calculate values for adjusting said coefficients of said digital filter of each subband by a series of step sizes predetermined in accordance with exponential attenuation characteristics of an impulse response of said echo path in each subband, and being operative to adjust said coefficients on the basis of said adjusting values and to provide said adjusted coefficients to said digital filter, whereby an impulse response of said estimated echo path in each subband, formed by said digital filter, is caused to approach said impulse response to said echo path in said subband to thereby minimize said residual echo signal in said subband. 2. The echo canceller of claim 1, further comprising an acoustic field characteristics calculation part which extracts said exponential attenuation characteristic of said impulse response of said echo path in said each subband from said N subband-analyzed received input signals and said residual echo signals from said N subtracting means and determines said series of step sizes, based on said extracted exponential attenuation characteristics.
3. The echo canceller of claim 1 or 2, wherein said first and second subband analysis means each include N band pass filter means for providing said N subbands so that change in the attenuation ratio of said impulse response of said echo path may be substantially constant.
4. The echo canceller of claim 1 or 2, wherein said coefficient calculation means in each subband includes: step size storage means for holding said series of step sizes; input signal storage means for holding a predetermined number of received input signals in said subband; norm calculation means for calculating a squared norm of said predetermined number of received input signals; adjusting value calculation means wherein the product of said step sizes, said residual echo signal and said received input signals is divided by said squared norm to obtain said adjusting values; coefficient storage means for holding the current values of said coefficients; and adder means for adding said adjusting values to said coefficients from said coefficient storage means to obtain new coefficients.
5. The echo canceller of claim 1 or 2, wherein said digital filter in each subband is an FIR filter.
6. The echo canceller of claim 4, wherein, letting said attenuation ratio of said amount of variation of said impulse response of said echo path in a k-th one of said N subbands and the filter order of said digital filter in said k-th subband be represented by γk and Lk, respectively, a series of Lk step sizes in said k-th subband are expressed as follows: &#945;ki =&#945;k0 ·&#947;k i-1, where i=1,2, . . . ,Lk. 7. The echo canceller of claim 6, wherein, letting said series of Lk step sizes in said k-th subband, Lk sample values of said received input signal in said k-th subband, said residual echo signal in said k-th subband and said coefficients of said digital filter of Lk taps be represented by a diagonal matrix Ak =diag[αk1, αk2, . . . , αkLk ], a received signal vector xk (m), ek (m) and , respectively, said coefficient calculation means calculates said adjusted coefficients nk (m) by the following equation ##EQU10## and provides said adjusted coefficients to said digital filter and updates the contents of said coefficient storage means.
8. The echo canceller of claim 1 or 2, wherein said first and second subband analysis means each include N polyphase filter means for providing N subbands of the same width and divide said received input signal and said echo signal into N complex received input signals and N complex echo signals, respectively, and said estimated echo path in said k-th subband is formed by a complex digital filter having Lk taps which are supplied with Lk complex coefficients.
9. The echo canceller of claim 8, wherein said complex digital filter in each subband is a digital complex FIR filter.
10. The echo canceller of claim 8, wherein said coefficient calculation means in said k-th subband includes: step size storage means for holding said series of step sizes; input signal storage means for holding Lk complex received input signals in said subband; norm calculation means for calculating the norm of said Lk complex received input signals; adjusting value calculation means wherein the product of said steps sizes, said residual echo signal and said complex received input signals is divided by said norm to obtain said adjusting values in a complex form; coefficient storage means for holding the current value of said complex coefficients; and adder means for adding said complex adjusting values to said complex coefficients from said coefficient storage means to obtain new complex coefficients.
11. The echo canceller of claim 10, wherein, letting said attenuation ratio of said amount of variation of said impulse response of said echo path in said k-th subband be represented by γk, said Lk step sizes in said k-th subband is expressed as follows: &#945;ki =&#945;k0 ·&#947;k i-1, where i=1,2, . . . ,Lk. 12. The echo canceller of claim 11, wherein, letting said series of Lk step sizes in said k-th subband, Lk sample values of said complex received input signals in said k-th subband, said complex residual echo signal in said k-th subband and said complex coefficients of said complex digital filter of Lk taps be represented by a diagonal matrix Ak =diag[αk1, αk2, . . . , αkLk ], a complex received input signal vector xk (m), Ek (m) and Hk (m), respectively, said coefficient calculation means calculate said adjusted complex coefficients Hk (m+1) by the following equation ##EQU11## where T represents the transpose of vector and * represents a complex conjugate, said coefficient calculation means providing said adjusted complex coefficients to said digital filter and updating the contents of said coefficient storage means.
13. The echo canceller of claim 1 or 2, wherein, letting said adjusted values, said step size matrix and said current values of said coefficients in said each subband be represented by Δn(m), A and n(m), respectively, said coefficient calculation means calculates coefficients n(m+1) adjusted by the following equation n(m+1)=n(m)+A&#916;n(m) and provides said adjusted coefficients to each tap of said digital filter in each subband. Description
The present invention relates to an echo canceller for cancelling an echo signal which causes howling and constitutes an impediment to hearing in a 2-wire/4-wire conversion system and a hands-free telecommunication system.
With the spread of satellite communications and audio teleconferences, there has been a strong demand for telecommunication equipment which possesses excellent simultaneous conversation performance and suppresses echoes well. Echo cancellers have been proposed to meet such requirements. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a conventional echo canceller disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 220530/89, the echo canceller being shown to be applied to hands-free telecommunication. In a telecommunication system including a receiving system from a receive input end 1 to a loud speaker 2 for receiving an input signal x(t) from a microphone (not shown) disposed at a different site and a sending system from a microphone 3 via a send out end 4 to a loud speaker (not shown) disposed at the above-mentioned different site, the received input signal x(t) is sampled by an analog-to-digital (hereinafter referred to simply as A/D) converter 8 and the sampled received input signal x(n) is supplied to an estimated echo path 7 from the loud speaker 2 to the microphone 3 which approximates an echo path Pe of an impulse response h(t). On the other hand, an echo signal y(t), which has reached the microphone 3 via the echo path Pe from the loud speaker 2, is sampled by an A/D converter 5 into an echo signal y(n) and an echo replica signal y(n) from the estimated echo path 7 is subtracted by a subtractor 9 from the echo signal y(n) to cancel the latter.
It is necessary that the estimated echo path 7 follow up temporal variations of the echo path Pe. In the above-said example the estimated echo path 7 is formed by a digital finite impulse response (hereinafter referred to simply as FIR) filter and its filter coefficients are iteratively adjusted by a coefficient calculation part 6 using, for example, a least mean square algorithm (hereinafter referred to simply as LMS algorithm), normalized LMS algorithm, or affine projection algorithm so that the residual echo e(n)=y(n)-y(n) may approach zero. By such adjustment of the estimated echo path 7, optimum echo cancellation is maintained at all times.
FIG. 2 shows, by way of example, the internal construction of the coefficient calculation part 6 which employs an exponentially weighted step size algorithm (hereinafter referred to simply as ES algorithm) set forth in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application or a literature, S. Makino et al., "Acoustic Echo Canceller Algorithm based on the Variation Characteristics of a Room Impulse Response," IEEE 1990 International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, pp. 1133-1136. Received input signals x(n) are sequentially written into a received input signal storage 14, the contents of which are updated so that it always holds the same number of the latest sample values as the number of taps of the FIR filter. All the received input signals held in the storage 14 are handled as a vector x(n) and ═x(n)═2 is calculated in a norm calculator 13. In a step size matrix storage 12 is stored a step size matrix A which is a diagonal matrix. In the case where the estimated echo path 7 is formed by the above-mentioned digital FIR filter, its filter coefficients n(n) are a direct simulation of a room impulse response h(t). Consequently, the values of adjustment of the filter coefficients which are required in accordance with the variation of the echo path Pe coincide with the amount of variation of the room impulse response h(t). Then, the step size matrix A, which represents the step in the filter coefficient adjusting operation, is weighted in terms of a temporal variation characteristic of the impulse response h(t). In general, the impulse response in a room sound field undergoes an exponential attenuation, and also when the impulse response varies in response to a movement of an object in the sound field, the impulse response is exponentially attenuated and the difference between its values before and after the variation also has an exponential attenuation characteristic. That is, the amount of variation of the impulse response can be represented as an exponential function using an attenuation ratio γ. Accordingly, the value of each of the diagonal elements (hereinafter referred to simply as a step size) αi (i=1, 2, . . . , L, where L is the filter order) of the step size matrix A is chosen so that as i increases, it exponentially attenuates from αmax with the same slope as that of the exponential attenuation characteristic of the impulse response and gradually approaches αmin as shown in FIG. 3. The signals x(n), ═x(n)═2 and e(n) and the step size matrix A are provided to an adjusting value calculation part 15 to calculate ##EQU1## The calculated output is applied to an adder 16, wherein it is added to the filter coefficients n(n) from a filter coefficient storage 11 to obtain n(n+1). The added output n(n+1) is provided to the estimated echo path 7 and, at the same time, it is supplied to the filter coefficient storage 11 to update its stored values. By such operations as mentioned above, the impulse response n(n) of the estimated echo path 7 is iteratively adjusted following Eq. (2) to approach the impulse response h(t) of the true echo path Pe. In the above, A=diag[α1, α2, . . . , αL ], the step size matrix; αi =α0 γi-1 (i=1, 2, . . . , L); γ is the exponential attenuation ratio of the amount of variation of the impulse response; L is the filter order; n(n)=(n1 (n), n2 (n), . . . , nL (n))T, the impulse response of the estimated echo path, i.e. coefficients of the FIR filter; e(n) is an estimated error (=y(n)-y(n)), i.e. the residual echo; x(n)=(x(n), x(n-1), . . . , x(n-L+1))T, the vector of the received input signal; and T is the transpose of the vector. A necessary and sufficient condition for the convergence of Eq. (2) with white noise is that the mean α of L step sizes αi (i=1, 2, . . . , L) is between 0 and 2 as expressed by the following equation (3): ##EQU2## For a speech signal a sufficient condition of the following equation (4) is used.
0&lt;&#945;i &lt;2(i=1, 2, . . . , L)                      (4)
The mean value α influences the convergence rate; namely, when the mean value α is 1, the convergence rate is maximum and as the mean value becomes smaller than 1, the convergence rate decreases. Further, the mean value α defines the final steady-state echo return loss enhancement (ERLE) as expressed below by the following equation (5): ##EQU3## Where SNR is the SN ratio between the echo signal y(n) in the microphone 3 and ambient noise. From Eq. (5) it can be seen that the steady-state ERLE increases as the mean value α decreases.
This algorithm utilizes an acoustic finding that when the impulse response varies with a movement of a man or object, the amount of variation (i.e. the difference in the impulse response) exponentially attenuates with the same attenuation ratio as that of the impulse response. By adjusting coefficients in large steps at an early stage of the impulse response of a great change and adjusting coefficients in small steps at a latter stage of the impulse response of a slight change, it is possible to offer an echo canceller of high convergence speed.
In conventional algorithms the step size matrix is weighted by the variation characteristic of the impulse response over the full band. However, this poses a problem that the convergence rate decreases under some conditions of the echo path.
On the other hand, there has been proposed by S. Gay et al. such a system as shown in FIG. 4, in which the received input signal x(t) is analyzed or divided by a subband analysis circuit 17 into a plurality of subbands where frequency components can be regarded substantially flat; the aforementioned estimated echo path 7k and coefficient calculation part 6k for calculating its impulse response n(n) are provided for each subband; the echo signal y(t) is similarly analyzed or divided by a subband analysis circuit 18 into the above-mentioned subbands; the output echo replica signal from the estimated echo path 7k is subtracted from the divided echo signal by the aforementioned subtractor 9k for each corresponding subband to obtain the residual echo signal; the coefficients of the filter forming the estimated echo path 7k are adjusted by the coefficient calculation part 6k so that the residual echo signal may be minimized; and the residual echo signals in the respective subbands are combined or synthesized by a subband synthesis circuit 19 into a composite residual echo signal e(t) of the full band (S. Gay et al., "Fast Converging Subband Acoustic Echo Cancellation Using RAP on the WE DSP 16A," IEEE 1990 International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, pp. 1141-1144). In this case, however, each coefficient calculation part 6k does not use the step size matrix A for the calculation of Eq. (2) but instead uses a constant α (scalar) common to all the subbands. This method reduces the amount of computation for echo cancellation, by dividing the received input signal into a plurality of subbands and increases the convergence speed of the impulse response n(n) according to the iterated calculation of Eq. (2) by whitening the received input signal analyzed into each subband, but it cannot be said that a satisfactory convergence speed has been achieved.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an echo canceller of a high impulse response convergence speed.
According to the principles of the present invention, the technique of adjusting a greatly-varying portion and a slightly-varying portion of the impulse response of an echo path in large step sizes and in small step sizes, respectively, is developed to the frequency characteristic itself based on the present inventors' idea that the reduction of the convergence speed in the ES algorithm is attributable to the fact that the variation characteristic of the impulse response has a frequency characteristic. The impulse response of the echo path in a sound field is analyzed or divided into a plurality of subbands. The echo canceller of the present invention is formed reflecting the variation characteristics (the exponential attenuation ratio (the slope) and the amount of variation (the magnitude)) of the impulse response in each subband. With such a construction, it is possible to implement an echo canceller of a high impulse response convergence speed, reflecting the frequency characteristics of variation in the impulse response of the echo path in a sound field.
According to the present invention, a signal is divided into a plurality of subbands, and in each subband an estimated echo path and a coefficient calculation part for determining its impulse response are provided. Each coefficient calculation part has a step size storage, to which is applied a step size matrix which is determined by the variation characteristic of the impulse response of the echo path in the sound field in the corresponding subband. The step size matrix in each subband determines the magnitudes of adjustment of the filter coefficients which are called for in accordance with variations of the sound-field echo path in the corresponding subband.
With the present invention of such a constitution, the frequency characteristic of the amount of variation in the impulse response can be reflected in the values of adjustment for the estimated echo path in each subband, and hence the echo canceller of the present invention has a high impulse response convergence speed.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of conventional echo cancellers;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing, by way of example, the construction of a coefficient calculation part 6 in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a graph showing a diagonal element αi of a step size matrix A;
FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of an echo canceller utilizing a conventional subband technique;
FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the construction of a subband analysis circuit 17;
FIG. 7 is a graph for explaining a method of the subband analysis technique;
FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing an example of the construction of a coefficient calculation part 6k in a k-th subband;
FIG. 9A is a graph showing an example of the impulse response in a low subband:
FIG. 9B is a graph showing an example of the impulse response in a high subband;
FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing the construction of an acoustic field characteristic calculation part 100;
FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating a second embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing the construction of a subband analysis circuit 22 in FIG. 11;
FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of subband signals;
FIG. 14 is a block diagram showing an example of the construction of a coefficient calculation part 26k in the k-th subband;
FIG. 15 is a block diagram showing the construction of an acoustic field characteristic calculation part 200;
FIG. 16 is a graph showing the results of simulation of the process of convergence for a white noise signal input in the present invention and in the conventional ES algorithm;
FIG. 17 is a graph showing the results of simulation of the process of convergence for a white noise signal input in the present invention and in the conventional subband method; and
FIG. 18 is a graph showing, by way of example, the case of setting the diagonal element αi of the step size matrix in an approximated stepwise form.
FIG. 5 illustrates in block form a first embodiment of the present invention, in which the parts corresponding to those in FIGS. 1 and 4 are identified by the same reference numerals.
The received input signal x(t) is analyzed or divided by the subband analysis circuit 17 into N real signals xk (m) (k=0, 1, . . . , N-1) for different subbands. Similarly, the echo signal y(t) is analyzed or divided by the subband analysis circuit 18 into N real signals yk (m) for the same subbands as mentioned above. The analysis of the received input signal x(t) and the echo signal y(t) into the subbands is intended to reflect the variation characteristic of the impulse response of the sound field, and to accomplish this object to the full extent, each signal is divided into subbands so that variation in the impulse response in each subband can be regarded substantially the same, though the subbands are not necessarily of an equal bandwidth.
The estimated echo path 7k, formed by a digital FIR filter, for example, is provided corresponding to each subband and the output echo replica signal yk (m) from the estimated echo path 7k is supplied to the subtractor 9k in the corresponding subband. The subtractor 9k subtracts the echo replica signal from the echo signal yk (m) in the corresponding subband and provides the resulting residual echo ek (m) to the subband synthesis circuit 19 and the coefficient calculation part 6k.
In this instance, it is necessary that the estimated echo path 7k follow up the temporal variation of the echo path Pe. The impulse response of the estimated echo path 7k or the coefficients of the digital filter 7k in each subband are iteratively calculated by the coefficient calculation part 6k through utilization of, for example, the LMS algorithm, normalized LMS algorithm, affine projection algorithm, or some other algorithm so that the residual echo, ek (m)=yk (m)-yk (m), may approach zero. The result of this calculation is provided to the estimated echo path 7k to adjust it, by which an optimum echo cancellation is maintained at all times.
The residual echo signals ek (m) in the respective subbands are combined or synthesized by the subband synthesis circuit 19 into the residual echo signal e(t) of the full band.
FIG. 6 illustrates the internal construction of the subband analysis circuit 17. The received input signal x(t) is sampled by the A/D converter 8 and the sampled outputs are each band-limited by the corresponding band pass filter 20k. The band-limited signal xk (n) is down-sampled by a down sampling circuit 21k by a factor M into xk (m) to extract every mth sample.
As referred to previously wit to FIGS. 2 and 3, the amount of variation in the impulse response of the room echo path Pe attenuates exponentially. In this embodiment the subband Fk is determined so that the attenuation ratio γ of the amount of impulse response variation of the echo path Pe may become of substantially the same width of variation as shown in FIG. 7, for example, and the mean attenuation ratio in each subband, for instance, is determined to be the attenuation ratio γk of the subband.
FIG. 8 illustrates, by way of example, the internal construction of the coefficient calculation part 6k of the k-th subband which employs the ES algorithm. A series of received input signals xk (m) equal in number to the filter order of the digital filter 7k are prestored as received input signal vectors xk (m) in the received input signal storage 14k, and upon each write of the latest received input signal sample thereinto, the oldest received input signal sample is discarded. Also in the norm calculator 13k, ||xk (m)||2 is calculated for the sequence of received input signals xk (m) of the number equal to the filter order. In the step size matrix storage 12k is stored the step size matrix Ak which is a diagonal matrix and which is characteristic of the present invention. The step size matrix Ak is weighted by the variation characteristic Of the impulse response of the echo path in the corresponding subband. In the case where the echo path Pe is formed in an ordinary room, the amount of variation in the impulse response in the k-th subband is represented as an exponential function using the attenuation ratio γk.
The received input signal vector xk (m), its squared norm ||xk (m)||2, the residual echo signal ek (m) and the step size matrix Ak are provided to the adjustment value calculation part 15k to calculate ##EQU4## The calculated output is applied, as adjusting values, to the adder 16k, wherein it is added to the current filter coefficients nk (m) being held in the filter coefficient storage 11k, thus obtaining new coefficients nk (m+1). The result of this calculation, nk (m+1) is output, as adjusted filter coefficients, to the estimated echo path 7k, and at the same time, it is used to update the stored contents of the filter coefficient storage 11k.
By the above operations, the estimated echo path 7k is iteratively adjusted following the equation (7) given below, and as a result, the impulse response of the estimated echo path 7k (i.e. the filter coefficients of the digital filter 7k ) nk (m) approaches the impulse response hk (m) of the true or actual echo path Pe. ##EQU5## In the above, Ak =diag[αk1, αk2, . . . , αkL ]: step size matrix in the k-th subband
&#945;ki =&#945;k0 ·&#947;k i-1(i=1,2, . . . ,Lk)                                                 (8)
γk : attenuation ratio of the amount of variation of the impulse response variation in the k-th subband
Lk : filter order in the k-th subband which may be determined as desired in accordance with any known method ##EQU6##
0&lt;&#945;ki &lt;2                                        (10)
nk (m)=(nki (m), nk2 (m), . . . , nkL (m))T : impulse response (i.e. the coefficients of the FIR filter) in the k-th subband
ek (m): estimated error in the k-th subband (=yk (m)-yk (m)), i.e. the residual echo
xk (m)=(xk (m), xk (m-1), . . . , xk (m-L+1))T: received input signal vector in the k-th subband
T: transpose of vector
FIGS. 9A and 9B show, by way of example, impulse responses in subbands 250 through 750 Hz and 3250 through 3750 Hz, respectively. The impulse response in each subband attenuates exponentially, and as mentioned previously, the variation characteristic of the impulse response following a variation of the echo path also attenuates exponentially. What is more important in the present invention is the feature that the exponent attenuation or decay curve of each impulse response is long at low frequencies (FIG. 9A) and short at high frequencies (FIG. 9B). In other words, the attenuation curve of the impulse response differs with the subbands. Based on this fact, according to the present invention, a different step size matrix Ak for each subband is determined in an acoustic field characteristic calculation part 100 as described below.
As shown in FIG. 10, the acoustic field characteristic calculation part 100 includes step size determination parts 100 through 10N-1 corresponding to the respective subbands and determines the step size matrix Ak, reflecting the variation characteristic of the impulse response in each subband, i.e. the exponential attenuation ratio (the slope) and the amount of variation (the magnitude), on the exponential attenuation ratio γk and the mean step size αk as mentioned below. The step size matrix Ak thus obtained is provided to the coefficient calculation part 6k.
Method 1: At first, a proper initial value (αki =1, for example) is given to the step size matrix Ak for each subband Fk and a white noise signal, for example, is applied, as the received input signal x(t), to the terminal 1 (FIG. 5) to obtain the echo signal y(t) in the microphone 3. Based on these signals, the echo replica signal yk (m) and the residual echo signal ek (m) are obtained, and the residual echo signal and the received input signal are used to obtain the impulse response of the estimated echo path 7k again. This operation is iteratively repeated to perform an adaptive operation so that the residual echo signal ek (m) may be minimized, by which the impulse response nk of the estimated echo path 7k is converged to the true impulse response hk. Since the amount of variation in the impulse response of the echo path also attenuates at the same exponential attenuation ratio as that of the impulse response itself as mentioned previously in respect of the prior art depicted in FIGS. 1 through 3, the attenuation ratio of the impulse response nk of the subband Fk thus estimated is obtained as the exponential attenuation ratio γk of the variation in the impulse response hk of the echo path Pe in that subband. The exponential attenuation ratio γk can be obtained from the impulse response by approximately solving an equation composed of Lk equalities obtainable by substituting into the following equation the values of components nk1, nk2, . . . , nkLk of
the impulse response obtained as mentioned above:
||nk ||=||nk0 ||&#947;k i-1                     (11)
Alternatively, Eq. (11) is modified into the following linear function concerning i and the exponential attenuation ratio γk can be obtained from its slope log γk.
log||nki ||=log||nk0 ||+(i-1)log&#947;k                (12)
Such determination of the exponential attenuation ratio γk is carried out by an attenuation ratio calculation part 111k in the coefficient calculation part 6k shown in FIG. 8. Thus, the attenuation ratio γk in Eq. (8) is determined.
Next, the coefficient αk0 in Eq. (8) is determined as follows: The true impulse response hk is changed as by movement of a conference participant and a change in |ek |2 /|xk |2 of each subband is obtained. The change in |ek |2 /|xk |2 indicates the magnitude of the change in the impulse response in the subband Fk. Then, the mean step size αk in the subband in which the change in the impulse response is maximum is set to 1 and the step size αk is set to a smaller value as the change in the impulse response becomes smaller. Obtaining the total sum of both sides of Eq. (8) in connection with i=1, 2, . . . , Lk, the following equation is obtained: ##EQU7## Accordingly, αk0 is calculated by substituting the thus obtained exponential attenuation ratio αk and mean step size αk into Eq. (13). Next, αki in each subband is obtained following Eq. (8) to determine the step size matrix Ak in the subband, which is provided to the coefficient calculation part 6k. The step size matrix Ak in each subband, thus determined, need not be updated unless the acoustic field (the conference room, for example) is changed and/or unless the physical condition in the same acoustic field (the number of people in the room, for instance) undergoes a substantial change.
Method 2: The variation characteristics of the impulse response, that is, the exponential attenuation ratio (the slope) and the amount of variation (the magnitude), are measured, by use of Method 1, under various conditions in different rooms of various acoustic characteristics to obtain the exponential attenuation ratio γk and the mean step size αk, from which αk0 is computed. Then αki is obtained following Eq. (8) to determine the step size matrix Ak in each subband, and its standard value is prestored in a ROM and is provided therefrom to the coefficient calculation part 6k, for example, when the power source is connected.
By setting the step size matrix Ak for each subband as mentioned above, the frequency characteristics of the amount of variation of the impulse response can be reflected, and hence an echo canceller of high convergence speed can be provided.
FIG. 11 illustrates a second embodiment of the present invention, which employs a polyphase filter bank for the subband analysis unlike the first embodiment. The use of the polyphase filter bank afford reduction of the computational load. In this instance, the subbands are equally spaced apart and signals Xk (m), Yk (m) and Ek (m) and the impulse response of the estimated echo path or coefficients of the FIR filter Hk (m) are represented by complexes.
The received input signal x(t) is analyzed or signals Xk (m) (k=0, 1, . . . , N-1) in different subbands. Similarly, the echo signal y(t) is analyzed or divided by a subband analysis circuit 23 into N complex signals Yk (m) each corresponding to a different subband. In each subband there is provided an estimated echo path 25k and an echo replica signal Yk (m) from the estimated echo path 25k is subtracted by a subtractor 27k from the echo signal Yk (m) to cancel the latter.
The estimated echo path (formed by a complex FIP filter) 25k has to follow up the temporal variation of the echo path Pe. The estimated echo path 25k is iteratively estimated and hence adjusted by a coefficient calculation part 26k through use of a complex LMS algorithm, complex normalized LMS algorithm, or similar algorithm so that the residual echo, Ek (m)=Yk (m)-Yk (m) may be reduced toward zero. Thus, an optimum echo cancellation is always maintained.
The residual echo signals Ek (m) in the respective subbands are combined or synthesized by a subband synthesis circuit 24 into a full-band signal e(t). This analysis-synthesis process can efficiently be performed by use of an N-point FFT.
FIG. 12 illustrates the construction of the subband analysis circuit 22, in which the received input signal x(t) is sampled by the A/D converter 8, multiplied by WN -nk =exp(-j2nkπ/N) in a multiplier 28k in each subband and band-limited by a low pass filter 29k of the subband (-π/N, π/N), whereby the received input signal is analyzed or divided into N subbands FO through FN-1. The band-restricted signal Xk (n) is down-sampled by a down sampling circuit 30k by a factor M into Xk (m). The factor M may be selected as desired within technical limitations known in this field. The subband signals X0 (m) through XN-1 (m) each correspond to a short-time spectrum. FIG. 13 shows the subbands when N=16. Of the 16 subband signals X0 (m) through X15 (m), the signals X0 (m) and X8 (m) are real and the others are complex. The subbands (F7 and F9, for example), which are symmetrical with respect to the subband F8, bear a complex conjugate relationship to each other, and consequently, the full-band signal could be synthesized, if a total of nine (two real and seven complex) subband signals are available.
FIG. 14 illustrates, by way of example, the construction of the coefficient calculation part 26k in the k-th subband which employs a complex ES algorithm. The received input signal Xk (m) is written, as a received input signal vector Xk (m)*, into a received input signal storage 34k and, at the same time, Xk (m)T Xk (m)* is computed by a norm calculator 33k. In a step size matrix storage 32k is stored the step size matrix Ak. The step size matrix Ak is weighted by the variation characteristic of the impulse response in the corresponding subband. As described previously, when the echo path is formed in an ordinary room, the amount of variation of the impulse response in the k-th subband is represented as an exponential function using the attenuation ratio γk.
The Xk (m) and Xk (m)T Xk (m)*, Ek (m) and Ak are supplied to an adjusting value calculation part 35k to calculate ##EQU8## The calculated output is supplied to an adder 36k, in which it is added to the filter coefficients Hk (m) from a filter coefficient storage 31k to obtain adjusted coefficients Hk (m+1). The result of the calculation, Hk (m+1), is provided to the estimated echo path 25k and, at the same time, it is used to update the stored contents of the filter coefficient storage 31k.
By the above operations, the estimated echo path 25k is iteratively adjusted in accordance with following Eq. (15) and the impulse response Hk (m) of the estimated echo path 25k approaches the impulse response Hk (m) of the true echo path Pe. ##EQU9## In the above, Ak =diag[αk1, αk2, . . . , αkL ]: step size matrix in the k-th subband
&#945;ki =&#945;k0 ·&#947;k i-1 (i=1,2, . . . , Lk)                                              (16)
γk : attenuation ratio of the amount of variation of the impulse response in the k-th subband
Lk : filter order (i.e. the number of taps of the filter) in the k-th subband
Hk (m)=(nk1 (m), nk2 (m), . . . , nkL (m))T : impulse response of the estimated echo path (i.e. coefficients of the FIR filter) in the k-th subband
Ek (m): residual echo (=Yk (m)-Yk (m)) in the k-th subband
*: complex conjugate
FIG. 15 illustrates the internal construction of the acoustic field characteristic calculation part 200, which includes step size determination parts 400 -40N-1 each of which determines the step size matrix Ak, reflecting the variation characteristic of the impulse response in each subband, that is, the exponential attenuation ratio (the slope) and the amount of variation (the magnitude), on the exponential attenuation ratio γk and the mean step size αk. The step size matrix Ak thus determined is provided to the coefficient calculation part 26k. This processing is similar to that used in the FIG. 5 embodiment, and hence it will be described in brief.
Method 1: At first a proper initial value (αki =1, for instance) is given to the step size matrix Ak and an adaptive operation of the estimated echo path 25k in each subband is performed, by which the impulse response Hk of the estimated echo path 25k is converged to the true impulse response Hk. The attenuation ratio of the impulse response Hk thus estimated is obtained, as the exponential attenuation ratio γk of the impulse response of the echo path Pe in that subband, in an attenuation ratio calculation part 131k.
Next, the true impulse response Hk is caused to vary by a movement of a conference participant, for example, and a change in ||Ek ||2 /||Xk ||2 at that time is obtained. This change represents the magnitude of a change of the impulse response in each subband. In view of this, the mean step size αk in the subband of the maximum impulse response variation is set to 1 and the mean step size αk is set to smaller values in the order of subbands in which the impulse response variation becomes smaller. Based on the attenuation ratio γk and the mean step size αk obtained, αk0 is obtained and αki is obtained following Eq. (16). The step size matrix Ak in each subband, thus determined, is provided to the coefficient calculation part 26k.
Method 2: The variation characteristics of the impulse response (the exponential attenuation ratio (the slope) and the amount of variation (the magnitude)) is measured, by use of Method 1, under various conditions in different rooms of various acoustic characteristics to obtain the exponential attenuation ratio γk and the mean step size αk, from which αk0 is computed. Then αki is obtained following Eq. (16) to determine the step size matrix Ak in each subband, and its standard value is prestored in a ROM, from which it is applied to the coefficient calculation part 26k, for example, when the power source is connected.
Also in this embodiment, the step size matrix Ak is set for each subband, by which the frequency characteristics of the attenuation ratio of the amount of impulse response variation can be reflected on the exponential attenuation ratio γk and the mean step size αk, and hence it is possible to offer an echo canceller of high convergence speed.
FIG. 16 shows the results of computer simulations of the convergence performance of the second embodiment. The measured impulse response (516 taps, sampling frequency fs =8 kHz) was analyzed into 16 Subbands and down-sampled by a factor M=12. The received input signal used was a white noise signal. The echo signal was added with near end noise so that the SN ratio might be 30 dB.
The solid line A indicates the convergence characteristic obtained with the present invention and the broken line B the convergence characteristic obtained with the prior art employing the ES algorithm as depicted in FIGS. 1 through 3. With the prior art method, the convergence speed is maximum when α=1. In the computer simulations, αk =0, 1, . . . , N-1) was set to 1 in the method of the present invention and α was set to 1 in the prior art method so that the equal steady-state ERLE might be obtained when the convergence speed was maximum.
From FIG. 16 it can be seen that the convergence time for the echo return loss enhancement to reach 10 dB is reduced to about 60% of the convergence time in the prior art method. Since the echo path often varies owing to movement of people in the hands-free telecommunication system, a rapid adaptation to such variation is a great advantage.
FIG. 17 shows, in comparison, the result A of the compute simulation for the ERLE by the present invention depicted in FIG. 16 and the result C of computer simulation for the ERLE by the conventional subband method described previously with respect to FIG. 4. Also in this case, a white noise signal was used as the received input signal. In the simulation for the prior art the step size α was set to 1 in all the subbands. In the case of the curve A, the time necessary for the ERLE to reach 10 dB is around 25% of the time needed in the case of the prior art indicated by the curve C--this indicates that the present invention is advantageous over the prior art.
While in the above the present invention has been described in connection with the case where the amount of variation of the impulse response in an acoustic field has an exponential attenuation characteristic, some other arbitrary variation characteristic may also be employed. Moreover, an impulse response variation characteristic approximated stepwise as shown in FIG. 18, for example, may also be set as the diagonal element αki of the step size matrix.
Although the digital filter has been described to be an FIR filter, some other digital filters may be utilized Furthermore, the algorithm used has been described to be the ES algorithm, but some other algorithms may be used. The present invention may also be used with an arbitrary gradient type adaptive algorithm which is expressed by the following equation (17) and adds an adjusting term Δn(m) to coefficients n(m) for iterative adjustment.
n(m+1)=n(m)+A&#916;n(m)                                   (17)
In this instance, the step size needs only to be determined in accordance with the magnitude of variation of the estimated parameter which is caused by the impulse response variation characteristics.
As described above, according to the present invention, since the frequency characteristics of the amount of variation of the impulse response is reflected on the exponential attenuation ratio and the mean step size, if the present invention is applied to the conventional echo canceller of ES algorithm, the convergence time needed can be reduced to about 60%, and if the present invention is applied to the conventional subband echo canceller, the convergence time needed can be reduced to about 25%. Hence, the speech quality is improved accordingly.
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INTEREST.;ASSIGNORS:MAKINO, SHOJI;HANEDA, YOICHI;KANEDA, YUTAKA;REEL/FRAME:005860/0809Effective date: 19910903Apr 22, 1997FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 4Jun 15, 2001FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 8Jun 3, 2005FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 12RotateOriginal ImageGoogle Home - Sitemap - USPTO Bulk Downloads - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - About Google Patents - Send FeedbackData provided by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services