Patent ID: 8345860

Claim:
A method for fast detection of onset of a near-end signal in an echo cancellation system, the near-end signal being a speech signal of a user at a near end of the echo cancellation system, the echo cancellation system generating an estimate of an acoustic echo present at the near end, the near end comprising a microphone, the microphone generating a microphone output signal, the microphone output signal and the estimate of acoustic echo being used to calculate an error signal, the method comprising the steps of: a. computing an onset indicator parameter from the error signal; and b. detecting onset of the near-end signal based on a cosine value of an angle between the microphone output signal and the estimate of acoustic echo, the onset indicator parameter, an average onset indicator parameter, and an onset detection threshold parameter, the detecting step comprising the steps of: i. comparing the cosine value of the angle between the microphone output signal and the estimate of acoustic echo with a first threshold value; ii. comparing the average onset indicator parameter with the onset detection threshold parameter and a second threshold value; and iii. setting a near-end indicator as one based on the comparisons in step (i) and step (ii).