Patent ID: 8111840

Claim:
A method for reducing an echo and/or a residual echo in a microphone output signal, the method comprising: generating an estimated echo signal based on received audio input signals; subtracting the estimated echo signal from the microphone output signal to generate an echo compensated signal; detecting speech activity of a local speaker based on the microphone output signal and the estimated echo signal; and suppressing the residual echo in the echo compensated signal based on the detected speech activity to obtain an echo suppressed output signal; wherein detecting the speech activity of the local speaker comprises: smoothing sub-band microphone signals derived from the microphone output signal in frequency to generate respective smoothed sub-band microphone signals; smoothing estimated sub-band echo signals derived from the estimated echo signal in frequency to generate respective smoothed estimated sub-band echo signals; and determining for the respective sub-bands, a distance between the smoothed sub-band microphone signals and the smoothed estimated sub-band echo signals.