System and method for adaptive intelligent noise suppression

• US 20090012783A1
• Filed: 07/06/2007
• Published: 01/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Audience Corporation
• Inventors: Klein, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,744,844 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/226
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2021/02165 Two microphones, one receiving mainly the noise signal and the other one mainly the speech signal
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0208 Noise filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2410/05 Noise reduction with a separate noise microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2430/00 Signal processing covered by H04R, not provided for in its groups
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/002 Damping circuit arrangements for transducers, e.g. motional feedback circuits

Abstract

Systems and methods for adaptive intelligent noise suppression are provided. In exemplary embodiments, a primary acoustic signal is received. A speech distortion estimate is then determined based on the primary acoustic signal. The speech distortion estimate is used to derive control signals which adjust an enhancement filter. The enhancement filter is used to generate a plurality of gain masks, which may be applied to the primary acoustic signal to generate a noise suppressed signal.

Claims

1. A method for adaptively suppressing noise, comprising:

receiving a primary acoustic signal;

determining a speech loss distortion estimate based on the primary acoustic signal;

generating a plurality of gain masks based on the speech loss distortion estimate utilizing an enhancement filter;

applying the plurality of gain masks to the primary acoustic signal to generated a noise suppressed signal; and

outputting the noise suppressed signal.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining a speech loss distortion estimate comprises subtracting a calculated noise spectrum from a power spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising calculating the noise spectrum.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising calculating the power spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising classifying noise and speech in the primary acoustic signal.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining an inter-level difference between the primary acoustic signal and a secondary acoustic signal.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating and applying a comfort noise to the noise suppressed signal prior to output.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein generating the comfort noise comprises setting the comfort noise to a level that is just above a level of audibility.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising deriving control signals to adjust the enhancement filter based on the speech loss distortion estimate.

10. A system for adaptively suppressing noise in a primary acoustic signal, comprising:

an acoustic sensor configured to receive the primary acoustic signal;

an adaptive intelligent suppression generator configured to adaptively generate a plurality of gain masks to apply to the primary acoustic signal; and

a mask module configured to apply the plurality of gain masks to the primary acoustic signal to generate a noise suppressed signal.

11. The system of claim 10 further comprising a comfort noise generator configured to generate a comfort noise to apply to noise suppressed signal.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the adaptive intelligent suppression generator comprises a speech distortion control module configured to determine a speech distortion estimate from the primary acoustic signal, and configured to derive control signals to adjust computation of the gain masks based on the speech distortion estimate.

13. The system of claim 10 further comprising a noise estimate module configured to generate a noise power spectrum used by the adaptive intelligent suppression generator to determine a speech distortion estimate.

14. The system of claim 10 further comprising an inter-level difference module configured to generate an inter-level difference used by the adaptive intelligent suppression generator to determine a speech distortion estimate.

15. The system of claim 10 wherein the adaptive intelligent suppression generator comprises a compute enhancement filter module configured to adaptively generate the gain masks based on a speech distortion estimate.

16. The system of claim 10 further comprising an energy module configured to generate a primary spectrum for the primary acoustic signal.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the energy module is further configured to generate a power spectrum for a second acoustic signal received by a second acoustic sensor.

18. A machine readable medium having embodied thereon a program, the program providing instructions for a method for adaptively suppressing noise, the method comprising:

receiving a primary acoustic signal;

determining a speech loss distortion estimate based on the primary acoustic signal;

generating a plurality of gain masks based on the speech loss distortion estimate utilizing an enhancement filter;

applying the plurality of gain masks to the primary acoustic signal to generated a noise suppressed signal; and

outputting the noise suppressed signal.

19. The machine readable medium of claim 18 wherein the method further comprises deriving control signals to adjust the enhancement filter based on the speech loss distortion estimate.

20. The machine readable medium of claim 18 wherein the method further comprising generating and applying a comfort noise to the noise suppressed signal prior to output.