Speech encoding apparatus and speech encoding method

• US 8,396,717 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Issued: 03/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 12, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Oshikiri, Masahiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Armstrong, Angela A
• Application Number:
  US12/088,300
• Publication Number:
  US 20090157413A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,356 Days
• Field of Search: 704/219, 704500-504
• US Class Current: 704/501
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/04 using predictive techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/02 Speech enhancement, e.g. noise reduction or echo cancellation reducing echo effects in line transmission systems H04B3/20; echo suppression in hands-free telephones H04M9/08
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/038 using band spreading techniques

Abstract

There is provided an audio encoding device capable of maintaining continuity of spectrum energy and preventing degradation of audio quality even when a spectrum of a low range of an audio signal is copied at a high range a plurality of times. The audio encoding device (100) includes: an LPC quantization unit (102) for quantizing an LPC coefficient; an LPC decoding unit (103) for decoding the quantized LPC coefficient; an inverse filter unit (104) for flattening the spectrum of the input audio signal by the inverse filter configured by using the decoding LPC coefficient; a frequency region conversion unit (105) for frequency-analyzing the flattened spectrum; a first layer encoding unit (106) for encoding the low range of the flattened spectrum to generate first layer encoded data; a first layer decoding unit (107) for decoding the first layer encoded data to generate a first layer decoded spectrum, and a second layer encoding unit (108) for encoding.

Claims

1. A speech encoding apparatus, comprising:

a first encoder that encodes a low band spectrum having a lower band than a threshold frequency of a speech signal;

a flattening circuit that flattens the low band spectrum using an inverse filter with inverse characteristics of a spectral envelope of the speech signal; and

a second encoder that encodes a high band spectrum having a higher band than the threshold frequency of the speech signal using the flattened low band spectrum, wherein

the second encoder modifies the flattened low band spectrum such that a dynamic range of the flattened low band spectrum is adjusted to be closer to a dynamic range of the high band spectrum and encodes the high band spectrum using the modified low band spectrum, and

the second encoder modifies the flattened low band spectrum using an encoding candidate that decreases a dynamic range preferentially over an encoding candidate that increases the dynamic range, among a plurality of encoding candidates.

2. The speech encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the flattening circuit forms the inverse filter using linear prediction coding coefficients of the speech signal.

3. The speech encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the flattening circuit changes a degree of flattening according to a degree of resonance of the speech signal.

4. The speech encoding apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the flattening circuit sets the degree of flattening lower when the degree of resonance is greater.

5. The speech encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second encoder estimates the high band spectrum from the flattened low band spectrum, modifies the estimated high band spectrum and encodes the high band spectrum of the speech signal by using the modified high band spectrum.

6. A radio communication mobile station apparatus comprising the speech encoding apparatus according to claim 1.

7. A radio communication base station apparatus comprising the speech encoding apparatus according to claim 1.

8. The speech encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second encoder carries out correction such that an encoding candidate search target value becomes smaller, and, based on the corrected target value, searches for an encoding candidate used to modify the flattened low band spectrum among the plurality of encoding candidates.

9. The speech encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second encoder estimates the high band spectrum from the modified low band spectrum, modifies the estimated high band spectrum and encodes the high band spectrum of the speech signal by using the modified high band spectrum.

10. A speech encoding method, comprising:

encoding, by a first encoder, a low band spectrum having a lower band than a threshold frequency of a speech signal;

flattening, by a flattering circuit, the low band spectrum using an inverse filter with inverse characteristics of a spectral envelope of the speech signal; and

encoding, by a second encoder, a high band spectrum having a higher band than the threshold frequency of the speech signal using the flattened low band spectrum,

wherein the second encoder modifies the flattened low band spectrum such that a dynamic range of the flattened low band spectrum is adjusted closer to a dynamic range of the high band spectrum and encodes the high band spectrum using the modified low band spectrum, and

the second encoder modifies the flattened low band spectrum using an encoding candidate that decreases a dynamic range preferentially over an encoding candidate that increases the dynamic range, among a plurality of encoding candidates.