Patent ID: 8204754

Claim:
A voice detector being responsive to an input signal being divided into sub-signals each representing a frequency sub-band (n), said voice detector comprises: a first input port configured to receive said sub-signals, a second input port configured to receive a background sub-signal based on said sub-signals, and means to calculate, for each sub-band, an SNR value (snr[n]) based on the corresponding sub-signal, and the background sub-signal, wherein said voice detector further comprises: means to calculate a power SNR value for each sub-band, wherein at least one of said power SNR values is calculated based on a non-linear function and said power SNR value has a value of (snr[n]) 2 , means to form a single value (snr_sum) based on the calculated power SNR values, means to compare said single value (snr_sum) and a given threshold value (vad_thr) to make a voice activity decision (vad_prim) presented on an output port, and wherein the voice detector is configured to apply the non-linear function to the SNR value before calculating the power SNR value based on the non-linear function, use a sub-band specific significance threshold value (sign_thresh) in the non-linear function to selectively suppress sub-bands, adaptively adjust the sub-band significance threshold value based on estimated noise, or background signal condition, and replace each SNR value (snr[n]) being less than the sub-band specific significance threshold value (sign_thresh) with a default value in the non-linear function.