Voice activity detector for audio signals

• US 9,418,680 B2
• Filed: 05/01/2015
• Issued: 08/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation (Dolby Laboratories Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation (Dolby Laboratories Incorporated)
• Inventors: Muesch, Hannes
• Primary Examiner(s): Godbold, Douglas
• Application Number:
  US14/701,622
• Publication Number:
  US 20150243300A1
• Time in Patent Office: 473 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/012 Comfort noise or silence coding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/018 Audio watermarking, i.e. embedding inaudible data in the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2025/932 Decision in previous or following frames
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2025/937 Signal energy in various frequency bands
• 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 21/0364 for improving intelligibility
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/78 Detection of presence or absence of voice signals switching of direction of transmission by voice frequency in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/10
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/93 Discriminating between voiced and unvoiced parts of speech signals G10L25/90 takes precedence

Abstract

According to one aspect, a method for detecting voice activity is disclosed, the method including receiving a frame of an input audio signal, the input audio signal having an sample rate; dividing the frame into a plurality of subbands based on the sample rate, the plurality of subbands including at least a lowest subband and a highest subband; filtering the lowest subband with a moving average filter to reduce an energy of the lowest subband; estimating a noise level for each of the plurality of subbands; calculating a signal to noise ratio value for each of the plurality of subbands; and determining a speech activity level of the frame based on an average of the calculated signal to noise ratio values and a weighted average of an energy of each of the plurality of subbands. Other aspects include audio decoders that decode audio that was encoded using the methods described herein.

Claims

1. A method for detecting voice activity in an audio signal, the method comprising:

receiving a frame of an input audio signal, the input audio signal having an sample rate;

dividing the frame into a plurality of subbands based on the sample rate, the plurality of subbands including at least a lowest subband and a highest subband;

filtering the lowest subband with a moving average filter to reduce an energy of the lowest subband;

estimating a noise level for each of the plurality of subbands;

calculating a signal to noise ratio value for each of the plurality of subbands; and

determining a speech activity level of the frame based on an average of the calculated signal to noise ratio values and a weighted average of an energy of each of the plurality of subbands,

wherein the method is performed on one or more computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising smoothing the calculated signal to noise ratio values over time to create temporally smoothed subband signal to noise values.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining a weighted average of the calculated signal to noise ratio values as a spectral tilt of the frame.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising determining a threshold value for the frame based at least on the spectral tilt of the frame and the speech activity level of the frame.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising classifying the frame as a voiced frame if the threshold value is exceeded for the frame.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the threshold value is additionally based on whether a previous frame was classified as a voiced frame.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising extracting one or more features of the frame.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising estimating a loudness associated with the frame based at least in part on the one or more features and adjusting a loudness of the frame to reduce variation of loudness between the frame and another frame, wherein the adjusting is based at least in part on the estimated loudness.

9. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing instructions that when executed by a processor perform the method of claim 1.

10. A voice activity detector, comprising:

an input interface that receives a frame of an input audio signal, the input audio signal having an sample rate;

one or more filterbanks that divide the frame into a plurality of subbands based on the sample rate, the plurality of subbands including at least a lowest subband and a highest subband;

a moving average filter that filters the lowest subband to reduce an energy of the lowest subband;

a noise level estimator that estimates a noise level for each of the plurality of subbands;

a signal to noise ratio calculator for determining a signal to noise ratio value for each of the plurality of subbands; and

a speech activity level determinator that determines a speech activity level of the frame based on an average of the calculated signal to noise ratio values and a weighted average of an energy of each of the plurality of subbands,

wherein the voice activity detector is implemented with one or more processors.

11. The voice activity detector of claim 10 further comprising a smoother that smoothes the calculated signal to noise ratio values over time to create temporally smoothed subband signal to noise values.

12. The voice activity detector of claim 10 wherein the one or more processors determine a weighted average of the calculated signal to noise ratio values as a spectral tilt of the frame.

13. The voice activity detector of claim 12 wherein the one or more processors determine a threshold value for the frame based at least on the spectral tilt of the frame and the speech activity level of the frame.

14. The voice activity detector of claim 13 further comprising classifier that classifies the frame as a voiced frame if the threshold value is exceeded for the frame.

15. The voice activity detector of claim 14 wherein the threshold value is additionally based on whether a previous frame was classified as a voiced frame.

16. The voice activity detector of claim 10 further including a feature extractor that extracts one or more features of the frame.

17. The voice activity detector of claim 16 further comprising an estimator that estimates a loudness associated with the frame based at least in part on the one or more features.

18. The voice activity detector of claim 17 further comprising an adjuster for adjusting a loudness of frame to reduce variation of loudness between the frame and another frame, wherein the adjusting is based at least in part on the estimated loudness.

19. An audio decoder that decodes an encoded audio bitstream that was encoded by an encoder that includes the voice activity detector of claim 10.