Method and apparatus of increasing speech intelligibility in noisy environments
US8280730B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | May 25, 2005 |
| Grant date | Oct 2, 2012 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 4, 2029 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG10L25/15
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method (400, 600, 700) and apparatus (220) for enhancing the intelligibility of speech emitted into a noisy environment. After filtering (408) ambient noise with a filter (304) that simulates the physical blocking of noise by a at least a part of a voice communication device (102) a frequency dependent SNR of received voice audio relative to ambient noise is computed (424) on a perceptual (e.g. Bark) frequency scale. Formants are identified (426, 600, 700) and the SNR in bands including certain formants are modified (508, 510) with formant enhancement gain factors in order to improve intelligibility. A set of high pass filter gains (338) is combined (516) with the formant enhancement gains factors yielding combined gains which are clipped (518), scaled (520) according to a total SNR, normalized (526), smoothed across time (530) and frequency (532) and used to reconstruct (532, 534) an audio signal.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.