Patent · US Active

Time-domain acoustic echo control

US8824667B2 · kind B2 · utility

3Cited by
6References
15Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 31, 2011
Grant dateSep 2, 2014
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 19, 2032

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04B3/23
  • WIPO fieldTelecommunications
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

In one embodiment, an acoustic echo control (AEC) module receives an outgoing signal and an incoming signal, which, at various times, contains acoustic echo corresponding to the outgoing signal. The AEC module has a delay estimation block that estimates, in the time domain, the echo delay using an adaptive filtering technique. This delay estimation is used to align samples of the incoming signal having acoustic echo with the corresponding samples of the outgoing signal from which the acoustic echo originated. The AEC module determines whether or not samples of the incoming signal contain acoustic echo based on the aligned outgoing signal, and the determinations are applied to a hangover counter. The AEC module then suppresses acoustic echo in the incoming signal and adds comfort noise to the incoming signal. The amount of echo suppression performed is gradually increased or decreased based on comparisons of the counter to a hangover threshold.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.