• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.383-389
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose a improved speech absence probability estimation algorithm by applying environmental noise classification for speech enhancement. The previous speech absence probability required to seek a priori probability of speech absence was derived by applying microphone input signal and the noise signal based on the estimated value of a posteriori SNR threshold. In this paper, the proposed algorithm estimates the speech absence probability using noise classification algorithm which is based on Gaussian mixture model in order to apply the optimal parameter each noise types, unlike the conventional fixed threshold and smoothing parameter. Performance of the proposed enhancement algorithm is evaluated by ITU-T P.862 PESQ (perceptual evaluation of speech quality) and composite measure under various noise environments. It is verified that the proposed algorithm yields better results compared to the conventional speech absence probability estimation algorithm.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.668-673
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• 2009

In this paper, we propose the minima controlled speech presence uncertainty tracking method to improve a speech enhancement. In the conventional tracking speech presence uncertainty, we propose a method for estimating distinct values of the a priori speech absence probability for different frames and channels. This estimation is inherently based on a posteriori SNR and used in estimating the speech absence probability (SAP). In this paper, we propose a novel estimation of distinct values of the a priori speech absence probability, which is based on minima controlled speech presence uncertainty tracking method, for different frames and channels. Subsequently, estimation is applied to the calculation of speech absence probability for speech enhancement. Performance of the proposed enhancement algorithm is evaluated by ITU-T P. 862 perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ) under various noise environments. We show that the proposed algorithm yields better results compared to the conventional tracking speech presence uncertainty.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.97-103
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• 2012

In this paper, we propose a novel voice activity detection (VAD) algorithm to effectively distinguish speech from nonspeech in various noisy environments. Global speech absence probability (GSAP) derived from likelihood ratio (LR) based on the statistical model is widely used as the feature parameter for VAD. However, the feature parameter based on conventional GSAP is not sufficient to distinguish speech from noise at low SNRs (signal-to-noise ratios). The presented VAD algorithm utilizes GSAP based on Teager energy (TE) as the feature parameter to provide the improved performance of decision for speech segments in noisy environment. Performances of the proposed VAD algorithm are evaluated by objective test under various environments and better results compared with the conventional methods are obtained.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.141-148
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• 2010

In this paper, voice activity detection (VAD) for dual-channel noisy speech recognition is proposed in which spatial cues are employed. In the proposed method, a probability model for speech presence/absence is constructed using spatial cues obtained from dual-channel input signal, and a speech activity interval is detected through this probability model. In particular, spatial cues are composed of interaural time differences and interaural level differences of dual-channel speech signals, and the probability model for speech presence/absence is based on a Gaussian kernel density. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed VAD method, speech recognition is performed for speech segments that only include speech intervals detected by the proposed VAD method. The performance of the proposed method is compared with those of several methods such as an SNR-based method, a direction of arrival (DOA) based method, and a phase vector based method. It is shown from the speech recognition experiments that the proposed method outperforms conventional methods by providing relative word error rates reductions of 11.68%, 41.92%, and 10.15% compared with SNR-based, DOA-based, and phase vector based method, respectively.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.175-182
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• 2010

In this paper, we propose a robust speech reinforcement technique to enhance the intelligibility of the degraded speech signal under the ambient noise environments based on soft decision scheme incorporating a speech absence probability (SAP) with speech reinforcement gains. Since the ambient noise significantly decreases the intelligibility of the speech signal, the speech reinforcement approach to amplify the estimated clean speech signal from the background noise environments for improving the intelligibility and clarity of the corrupted speech signal was proposed. In order to estimate the robust reinforcement gain rather than the conventional speech reinforcement method between speech active periods and nonspeech periods or transient intervals, we propose the speech reinforcement algorithm based on soft decision applying the SAP to the estimation of speech reinforcement gains. The performances of the proposed algorithm are evaluated by the Comparison Category Rating (CCR) of the measurement for subjective determination of transmission quality in ITU-T P.800 under various ambient noise environments and show better performances compared with the conventional method.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.396-401
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose a novel voice activity detection (VAD) algorithm to effectively distinguish speech from nonspeech in various noisy environments. The presented VAD utilizes the power spectral deviation (PSD) based on Teager energy (TE) instead of the conventional PSD scheme to improve the performance of decision for speech segments. In addition, the speech absence probability (SAP) is derived in each frequency subband to modify the PSD for further VAD. Performances of the proposed VAD algorithm are evaluated by objective test under various environments and better results compared with the conventional methods are obtained.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.75-79
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose a novel speech enhancement technique using global soft decision (GSD) based on the probabilistic outputs of support vector machine (SVM). Generally, speech enhancement algorithms applied soft decision gain modification and noise power estimation have bettor performance than those employing hard decision. Especially, global speech absence probability (GSAP), which is known as an effective measure of the speech absence in each frame, has been adopted to SD-based speech enhancement methods. For this reason, we introduce a new GSAP estimated from the probabilistic output of SVM using sigmoid function. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by the PESQ and MOS test under various noise environments and yields better results compared with the conventional GSD scheme.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.153-158
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• 2007

This paper presents a new approach to noise estimation to improve speech enhancement in non-stationary noisy environments. The proposed method combines the two separate noise power estimates provided by the minimum statistics (MS) for speech presence and soft decision (SD) for speech absence in accordance with SAP (Speech Absence Probability) on a separate frequency bin. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by the subjective test under various noise environments and yields better results compared with the conventional MS or SD-based schemes.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.81-88
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• 2012

In this paper, we propose a novel speech enhancement algorithm for effective noise suppression in various noisy environments. In the proposed method, to result in improved decision performance for speech and noise segments, local speech absence probability (LSAP, local SAP) based on Teager energy of noisy speech is used as the feature parameter for voice activity detection (VAD) in each frequency subband instead of conventional LSAP. In addition, The presented method utilizes global SAP (GSAP) derived in each frame as the weighting parameter for the modification of the adopted TE operator to improve the performance of TE operator. Performances of the proposed algorithm are evaluated by objective test under various environments and better results compared with the conventional methods are obtained.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.279-285
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• 2013

In this paper, we propose a novel speech enhancement method to improve the performance of the conventional global soft decision which is based on the spectral gradient method applied to the ratio of a priori speech absence and presence probability value (q). Conventional global soft decision scheme used a fixed value of q in accordance with the hypothesis assumed, but the proposed algorithm is a technique for improving the speech absence probability which is applied adaptively variable value of q according to the speech presence or absence in the previous two frames and the conditions of the spectral gradient value. Experimental results show that the proposed improved global soft decision method based on the spectral gradient method yields better results compared to the conventional global soft decision technique based on the performance criteria of the ITU-T P. 862 PESQ (Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality).