Apparatus and method for eliminating noise

• US 9,123,347 B2
• Filed: 08/29/2012
• Issued: 09/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
• Original Assignee: Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
• Inventors: Kim, Hong Kook, Park, Ji Hun, Seong, Woo Kyeong
• Primary Examiner(s): JACKSON, JAKIEDA R
• Application Number:
  US13/598,112
• Publication Number:
  US 20130054234A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,098 Days
• Field of Search: 704/208, 704/233, 704/226
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0208 Noise filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/87 Detection of discrete points within a voice signal
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/93 Discriminating between voiced and unvoiced parts of speech signals G10L25/90 takes precedence

Abstract

Provided are an apparatus and method for eliminating noise. The method includes: detecting a speech section from a noise speech signal including a noise signal; separating the speech section into a consonant section and a vowel section on the basis of a VOP at the speech section; calculating a transfer function of a filter for eliminating the noise signal to allow the degree of noise elimination to be different in the consonant section and the vowel section; and eliminating the noise signal from the noise speech signal on the basis of the transfer function.

Claims

1. A noise eliminating apparatus comprising:

a speech section detecting unit configured to detect a speech section from a noise speech signal including a noise signal;

a speech section separating unit configured to separate the speech section into a consonant section and a vowel section on the basis of a Vowel Onset Point (VOP) in the speech section;

a filter transfer function calculating unit configured to calculate a transfer function of a filter for eliminating the noise signal in order to allow the degree of noise elimination in the consonant section and the vowel section to be different, wherein the filter transfer function calculating unit comprises an initial transfer function calculating unit and a final transfer function calculating unit, wherein the initial transfer function calculating unit is configured to calculate an initial transfer function by estimating the priori SNR at a current signal frame when calculating the initial transfer function by using the current signal frame extracted from a noise speech signal, and wherein the final transfer function calculating unit is configured to calculate a final transfer function as a transfer function of the filter by updating a previously-calculated transfer function in consideration of a critical value according to whether a corresponding signal frame corresponds to which one of the consonant section, the vowel section, and a non-speech section, when calculating the final transfer function by using at least one signal frame after the current signal frame; and

a noise eliminating unit configured to eliminate the noise signal from the noise speech signal on the basis of the transfer function.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the filter transfer function calculating unit calculates the transfer function by allowing the degree of noise elimination in the consonant section to be less than that in the vowel section.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the speech section detecting unit compares a likelihood ratio of a speech probability to a non-speech probability in a first frequency with a speech section feature average value in at least two frequencies including the first frequency at each signal frame divided from the noise speech signal, in order to detect the speech section.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the speech section detecting unit comprises:

a posteriori Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) calculating unit configured to calculate a posteriori SNR by using a frequency component in a first signal frame;

a priori SNR estimating unit configured to estimate a priori SNR by using at least one of the spectrum density of a noise signal at a second signal frame prior to the first signal frame, the spectrum density of a speech signal in the second signal frame, and the posteriori SNR;

a likelihood ratio calculating unit configured to calculate a likelihood ratio with respect to each frequency included in the at least two frequencies by using the posteriori SNR and the priori SNR;

a speech section feature value calculating unit configured to calculate the speech section feature average value by averaging the sum of likelihood ratios for each frequency; and

a speech section determining unit configured to determine the first signal frame as the speech section when one side component including the likelihood ratio with respect to the first frequency is greater than the other side component including the speech section feature average value through an equation that uses the likelihood ratio with respect to the first frequency and the speech section feature average value as a factor.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a VOP detecting unit configured to detect the VOP by analyzing a change pattern of a Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) remaining signal.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the VOP detecting unit comprises:

a noise speech signal dividing unit configured to divide the noise speech signal into overlapping signal frames;

an LPC coefficient estimating unit configured to estimate an LPC coefficient on the basis of autocorrelation according to the signal frames;

an LPC remaining signal extracting unit configured to extract the LPC remaining signal on the basis of the LPC coefficient;

an LPC remaining signal smoothing unit configured to smooth the extracted LPC remaining signal;

a change pattern analyzing unit configured to analyze a change pattern of a smoothed LPC remaining signal in order to extract a feature corresponding to a predetermined condition; and

a feature utilizing unit configured to detect the VOP on the basis of the feature.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the noise eliminating apparatus comprises:

a transfer function converting unit configured to convert the transfer function in order to correspond to an extraction condition used for extracting a predetermined level feature;

an impulse response calculating configured to calculate an impulse response in a time zone with respect to the converted transfer function; and

an impulse response utilizing unit configured to eliminate the noise signal from the noise speech signal by using the impulse response.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the transfer function converting unit comprises:

an index calculating unit configured to calculate indices corresponding to a central frequency at each frequency band included in the noise speech signal;

a frequency window deriving unit configured to derive frequency windows under a first condition predetermined at the each frequency band on the basis of the indices; and

a warped filter coefficient calculating unit configured to calculate a warped filter coefficient under a second condition predetermined based on the frequency windows, and performing the conversion, and

the impulse response calculating unit comprises;

a mirrored impulse response calculating unit configured to perform a number-expansion operation on an initial impulse response obtained using the warped filter coefficient in order to calculate a mirrored impulse response;

a causal impulse response calculating unit configured to calculate a causal impulse response based on the mirrored impulse response according to a frequency band number relating to the condition;

a truncated causal impulse response calculating unit configured to calculate a truncated causal impulse response on the basis of the causal impulse response; and

a final impulse response calculating unit configured to calculate an impulse response in the time zone as a final impulse response on the basis of the truncated causal impulse response and a Hanning window.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the noise eliminating apparatus is used to recognize speech.

10. A method of eliminating noise, the method comprising:

detecting a speech section from a noise speech signal including a noise signal;

separating the speech section into a consonant section and a vowel section on the basis of a VOP at the speech section;

calculating a transfer function of a filter for eliminating the noise signal to allow the degree of noise elimination to be different in the consonant section and the vowel section, wherein calculating a transfer function comprises calculating an initial transfer function and calculating a final transfer function, wherein calculating the initial transfer function comprises estimating the priori SNR at a current signal frame when calculating the initial transfer function by using the current signal frame extracted from a noise speech signal, and wherein calculating the final transfer function comprises calculating a transfer function of the filter by updating a previously-calculated transfer function in consideration of a critical value according to whether a corresponding signal frame corresponds to which one of the consonant section, the vowel section, and a non-speech section, when calculating the final transfer function by using at least one signal frame after the current signal frame; and

eliminating the noise signal from the noise speech signal on the basis of the transfer function.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the calculating of the filter transfer function comprises calculating the transfer function by allowing the degree of noise elimination in the consonant section to be less than that in the vowel section.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the detecting of the speech section comprises comparing a likelihood ratio of a speech probability to a non-speech probability in a first frequency with a speech section feature average value in at least two frequencies including the first frequency at each signal frame divided from the noise speech signal, in order to detect the speech section.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising detecting the VOP by analyzing a change pattern of an LPC remaining signal.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the removing of the noise comprises:

converting the transfer function in order to correspond to a standard used for extracting a predetermined level feature;

calculating an impulse response in a time zone with respect to the converted transfer function; and

eliminating the noise signal from the noise speech signal by using the impulse response.