Estimation of noise in a speech signal
First Claim
1. A speech communication or computing device (100) comprising:
- at least one speech input device for receiving noisy speech uttered by a speaker; and
a speech processing function (130), operably coupled to the speech input device, having a voice recognition function (140) for recognising speech uttered by the speaker, wherein the voice recognition function (140) comprises;
a noise reduction function (235), having a Wiener Filter (335) with adjustable filter coefficients;
wherein the speech communication or computing device (100) is characterised in that;
the at least one speech input device comprises multiple microphones (142, 144) configured to provide a substantially continuous noise signal; and
the noise reduction function (235) comprises a noise spectrum estimation function (325) to provide a substantially continuous estimate of noise to adjust said filter coefficients of said Wiener Filter (335), thereby removing noise from said noisy speech.
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Abstract
A speech communication or computing device comprises at least one speech input device for receiving noisy speech uttered by a speaker. A speech processing function comprises a voice recognition function, which comprises a noise reduction function (235) having a Wiener Filter (335) with adjustable filter co-efficients. The speech input device also comprises multiple microphones (142, 144) configured to provide a substantially continuous noise signal to a noise spectrum estimation function (325) of the noise reduction function (235) to provide a substantially continuous estimate of noise. The noise estimate is used to adjust the filter co-efficients of the Wiener Filter (335), thereby removing noise from the noisy speech. A microphone array and a method for speech recognition are also described. By using the noise estimate from, say, a microphone array, the Wiener filter coefficients can be updated substantially continuously, for example, each speech frame. This enables the noise to be tracked more closely than in known techniques. As the noise within a speech signal is tracked more closely, it can therefore be removed more effectively.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A speech communication or computing device (100) comprising:
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at least one speech input device for receiving noisy speech uttered by a speaker; and
a speech processing function (130), operably coupled to the speech input device, having a voice recognition function (140) for recognising speech uttered by the speaker, wherein the voice recognition function (140) comprises;
a noise reduction function (235), having a Wiener Filter (335) with adjustable filter coefficients;
wherein the speech communication or computing device (100) is characterised in that;
the at least one speech input device comprises multiple microphones (142, 144) configured to provide a substantially continuous noise signal; and
the noise reduction function (235) comprises a noise spectrum estimation function (325) to provide a substantially continuous estimate of noise to adjust said filter coefficients of said Wiener Filter (335), thereby removing noise from said noisy speech. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method for speech recognition (600) in a speech communication or computing device (100) the method comprising the steps of:
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receiving noisy speech (605) uttered by a speaker;
filtering (610) said noisy speech using a Wiener Filter to remove noise from said noisy speech; and
recognising speech (625) uttered by the speaker from said filtered noisy speech;
wherein the method is characterised by the steps of;
estimating (615) a noise component of said noisy speech uttered by said speaker in a substantially continuous manner from multiple microphones (142, 144) configured to provide a substantially continuous noise signal; and
using said estimated noise (620) in a substantially continuous manner to adjust filter coefficients of said Wiener Filter, thereby removing noise from said noisy speech on a substantially continuous basis.
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10. (canceled)
Specification