Audio signal processing apparatus for processing an input earpiece audio signal upon the basis of a microphone audio signal

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10403301-B2
Application number	US-201715789131-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 20, 2017
Priority date	Apr 23, 2015
Publication date	Sep 3, 2019
Grant date	Sep 3, 2019

Abstract

The invention relates to an audio signal processing apparatus for processing an input earpiece audio signal upon the basis of a microphone audio signal, the audio signal processing apparatus comprising a voice activity detector being configured to determine a voice activity indicator signal upon the basis of the input earpiece audio signal, a noise magnitude determiner being configured to determine a microphone noise magnitude indicator signal upon the basis of the microphone audio signal, a gain factor determiner being configured to determine a gain factor signal upon the basis of the voice activity indicator signal and the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal, and a weighter being configured to weight the input earpiece audio signal by the gain factor signal to obtain an output earpiece audio signal.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An audio signal processing apparatus for processing an input earpiece audio signal upon the basis of a microphone audio signal, the input earpiece audio signal being associated with the microphone audio signal, the audio signal processing apparatus comprising:
a voice activity detector being configured to determine a voice activity indicator signal upon the basis of the input earpiece audio signal, wherein the voice activity indicator signal indicates a magnitude of a voice component within the input earpiece audio signal;
a noise magnitude determiner being configured to determine a microphone noise magnitude indicator signal upon the basis of the microphone audio signal, wherein the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal indicates a magnitude of a noise component within the microphone audio signal;
a gain factor determiner being configured to determine a gain factor signal upon the basis of the voice activity indicator signal and the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal, wherein the gain factor signal indicates a gain associated with the input earpiece audio signal; and
a weighter being configured to weight the input earpiece audio signal by the gain factor signal to obtain an output earpiece audio signal.

2. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the voice activity detector is further configured to determine an earpiece noise magnitude indicator signal upon the basis of the input earpiece audio signal, wherein the earpiece noise magnitude indicator signal indicates a magnitude of a noise component within the input earpiece audio signal.

3. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the voice activity detector is further configured to determine a first envelope indicator signal and a second envelope indicator signal, wherein the first envelope indicator signal indicates a magnitude of a first envelope of the input earpiece audio signal, wherein the second envelope indicator signal indicates a magnitude of a second envelope of the input earpiece audio signal, and wherein the voice activity detector is further configured to determine the voice activity indicator signal based on the earpiece noise magnitude indicator signal, the first envelope indicator signal, and the second envelope indicator signal.

4. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the voice activity detector is further configured to limit the voice activity indicator signal with regard to a predetermined voice activity indicator limiting range.

5. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the voice activity detector is further configured to filter the voice activity indicator signal in time upon the basis of a predetermined smoothing filtering function.

6. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the noise magnitude determiner is further configured to determine the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal upon the basis of the voice activity indicator signal.

7. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gain factor determiner is further configured to compare the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal with a predetermined noise magnitude threshold, and wherein the gain factor determiner is further configured to determine the gain factor signal if the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal is greater than the predetermined noise magnitude threshold.

8. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gain factor determiner is further configured to compare the voice activity indicator signal with a predetermined voice activity threshold, and wherein the gain factor determiner is further configured to determine the gain factor signal if the voice activity indicator signal is greater than the predetermined voice activity threshold.

9. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gain factor determiner is further configured to determine the gain factor signal according to the following equation:

Δ
G

⁡

(
n
)

=

x
vad

⁡

(
n
)

⁢

w
y

⁡

(
n
)

η

w
y

,

wherein Δ G denotes the gain factor signal, w y denotes the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal, η wy denotes a predetermined noise magnitude threshold, x vad denotes the voice activity indicator signal, and n denotes a sample index.

10. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gain factor determiner is further configured to limit the gain factor signal with regard to a predetermined gain factor limiting range.

11. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gain factor determiner is further configured to filter the gain factor signal in time upon the basis of a further predetermined smoothing filtering function.

12. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the weighter is further configured to weight the input earpiece audio signal by a predetermined user gain factor.

13. The audio signal processing apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising:
a communication interface being configured to receive the input earpiece audio signal over a communication network, and to transmit the microphone audio signal over the communication network.

14. An audio signal processing method for processing an input earpiece audio signal upon the basis of a microphone audio signal, the input earpiece audio signal being associated with the microphone audio signal, the audio signal processing method comprising:
determining a voice activity indicator signal upon the basis of the input earpiece audio signal, wherein the voice activity indicator signal indicates a magnitude of a voice component within the input earpiece audio signal;
determining a microphone noise magnitude indicator signal upon the basis of the microphone audio signal, wherein the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal indicates a magnitude of a noise component within the microphone audio signal;
determining a gain factor signal upon the basis of the voice activity indicator signal and the microphone noise magnitude indicator signal, wherein the gain factor signal indicates a gain associated with the input earpiece audio signal; and
weighting the input earpiece audio signal by the gain factor signal to obtain an output earpiece audio signal.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by a computer, causes the computer to be configured to:
determine a voice activity

Assignees

• Huawei Tech Co Ltd

Inventors

• Faller Christof
• Favrot Alexis
• Grosche Peter
• Lang Yue

Classifications

• G10L25/78

  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 title

• G10L25/84

  for discriminating voice from noise · CPC title

• G10L21/034 Primary

  Automatic adjustment · CPC title

• G10L21/0205

  Physics · mapped topic

• G10L21/0364

  for improving intelligibility · CPC title