In an acoustic echocanceller (6), an estimate of an echo signal is determined by an adaptive filter (10) and is subtracted from the input signal by a subtracter (14). The spectrum estimator (12) determines the frequency spectrum of the estimate of the echo signal, and the filter (16) filters the output signal of the subtracter (14) with a filter having a transfer function dependent on the spectrum determined by the estimator (12). The use of this combination results in a substantial improvement of the suppression of the echo signal.
|
0. 10. An arrangement for suppressing an interfering component in an input signal, said arrangement comprising:
a first filter configured to output an estimate of the interfering component;
a subtractor configured to subtract the estimate of the interfering component from the input signal to output a difference signal;
a second filter configured to receive the difference signal and output an output signal, said output signal being an estimate of said input signal substantially free of said interfering component;
wherein said second filter has a selectable transfer function configured to suppress spectral components associated with the interfering component; and
an analyzer configured to receive the estimate of the interfering component and output a control signal for setting the transfer function of the second filter, said control signal being related to a frequency spectrum of the estimate of the interfering component.
1. An arrangement for suppressing an interfering component in an input signal, said arrangement comprising:
a selection from singular and plural means for deriving an a summed estimate of the interfering component, ;
subtraction means for determining a difference signal from the input signal and an interfering estimate selected from the summed estimate of the interfering component and a sum estimate of at least two interfering components, ;
means for determining an estimate of the frequency spectrum of the summed estimate of the interfering component and an estimate of the frequency spectrum of the sununed interfering components, ;
a filter having an input for receiving said difference signal and an output for an output signal being an estimate of said input signal substantially free of said interfering component, and having a selectable transfer function relating said output to said input of the filter, which transfer function is reduced in value for at least one frequency range for suppressing spectral components of the output signal having a strong contribution from the interfering component, ; and
means for setting the transfer function of the filter in dependence on the estimate of the frequency spectrum of the summed estimate of the interfering component and the estimate of the frequency spectrum of the summed interfering components to thereby define the at least one frequency range.
2. The arrangement according to
3. The arrangement according to
4. The arrangement according to
wherein the means for determining an estimate of the frequency spectrum of the interfering component is arranged for determining the frequency of at least one peak in the frequency spectrum, and
wherein the filter is arranged for attentuation attenuating spectral components in a frequency range around the frequency of the at least one peak.
5. The arrangement according to one of the
wherein the means for determining an estimate of the frequency spectrum of the interfering component is arranged for determining the frequency of at least one peak in the frequency spectrum, and
wherein the filter is arranged for attenuating spectral components in a frequency range around the frequency of the at least one peak.
6. The arrangement according to
7. The arrangement according to
wherein the means for determining an estimate of the frequency spectrum of the interfering component is arranged for determining the frequency of at least one peak in the frequency spectrum, and
wherein the filter is arranged for attentuating attenuating spectral components in a frequency range around the frequency of the at least one peak.
8. The arrangement according to
wherein the means for determining an estimate of the frequency spectrum of the interfering component is arranged for determining the frequency of at least one peak in the frequency spectrum, and
wherein the filter is arranged for attentuating attenuating spectral components in a frequency range around the frequency of the at least one peak.
0. 11. The arrangement of
a third filter configured to receive an interfering signal having a second interfering component and to output a further estimate of the second interfering component; and
an adder configured to add the estimate of the interfering component and the further estimate to form an overall estimate of interfering components for input to said second filter and to said analyzer.
|
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an arrangement for suppressing an interfering component in an input signal, said arrangement comprises means for deriving an estimate of the interfering component, subtraction means for determining a difference signal from the input signal and the estimate of the interfering component.
The present invention is also related to a loudspeaking telephone.
2. Description of the Related Art
An arrangement according to the preamble is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,390,250.
This arrangement has widespread applications such as acoustic echo cancellers and noise cancellers. In these application there is an input signal in which an interfering component is present.
This interfering component can e.g. be a signal received from the far end in a loudspeaking telephone system. This far end signal is reproduced by a loudspeaker and is received by a microphone together with the near end signal e.g. from a local speaker. The input signal is now a signal derived from the output signal of the microphone. Because amplifiers are included in the transmit path, the loop gain for a specific frequency may be greater than 1, resulting in oscillations. If the acoustic feedback is smaller than 1, oscillation will not occur, but after a certain delay an echo of the signal applied to the input of the send path will appear at the output of the receive path via the far-end echo path. In telephony this means that a speaker hears his own voice delayed by a specific period of time. This phenomenon is experienced as extremely annoying especially in case of long delays.
To prevent this undesired feedback, in an acoustic echo canceller a replica of the undesired component is derived from the far end signal by means of an adaptive filter. Said replica is subtracted from the input signal, in order to eliminate the undesired component signal.
In case of a noise cancelling system the undesired component is a noise signal coming from a noise source, e.g. the noise of a running engine in a car. To eliminate the noise signal, a replica of the noise signal is derived from a reference noise signal received from a reference transducer by means of an adaptive filter. Again, this replica is subtracted from the input signal.
A problem with adaptive filters is the limited ability to track fast changes of the transfer function to be reproduced. Such a fast change can occur due to the movement of a person in the room in which the echo canceller or noise canceller is used. This can result into a reduced amount of suppression of the undesired component, a problem that is not satisfactorily solved up to now.
The object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement according to the preamble in which the ability to cope with changes in the transfer function to be reproduced by the adaptive filter has been drastically been improved.
Therefore the arrangement according to the invention is characterised in that the arrangement comprises means for determining an estimate for the frequency spectrum of the interfering component, and in that the arrangement comprises a filter having a reduced transfer function for at least one frequency range in dependence on the frequency spectrum of the interfering component.
By determining the frequency spectrum of the interfering component and by the use of a filter for selectively attenuating the frequency ranges corresponding to the frequency determined, an additional suppression of the interfering component is obtained. Experiments have shown surprisingly that the use of the above mentioned filter has almost no perceptual effect on the desired component of the input signal. Also these experiments revealed that the additional suppression of the undesired component, allows very rapid changes in the transfer function to be reproduced without hardly any perceptual effect.
An embodiment of the invention is characterised in that the filter is arranged for deriving an output signal from the difference signal.
If the filter is arranged for deriving the output signal in dependence on the difference signal, the operation of the means for deriving the replica of the undesired component is fully decoupled from the filtering operation. This has as advantage that the convergence properties of the means for deriving the replica of the undesired component are independent of the additional filtering.
A further embodiment of the invention is characterised in that the means for determining an estimate for the frequency spectrum of the interfering component are arranged for deriving the estimate for the frequency spectrum of the interfering component from the estimate of the interfering component.
At the output of the means for estimating the interfering component generally a good estimate of said interfering component is present. Using this signal for the determination of the frequency spectrum, results in a reliable estimation of said frequency spectrum.
A further embodiment of the invention is characterised in that the filter has a transfer function having an absolute value dependent on the difference of the amplitude of the frequency of the frequency spectrum of the input signal and the amplitude of the frequency spectrum of the estimate of the interfering component.
An easy way of deriving the transfer function of the filter is the subtraction of the estimate of the amplitude spectrum of the undesired component from the amplitude spectrum of the input signal. This subtraction operation is normally performed in the frequency domain, but the present invention is not limited thereto.
A very simple embodiment of the invention is characterised in that the means for determining an estimate for the frequency spectrum of the interfering component are arranged for determining the frequency of at least one peak in the frequency spectrum, and in that the filter is arranged for attenuating components in a frequency range around the frequency of the at least one peak.
The frequency peak or peaks can e.g. be determined by calculation of linear prediction parameters. The filter can have a transfer function being dependent on the prediction parameters.
The invention will now be explained with reference to the drawings. Herein shows:
In the echo canceller according to
The output of a microphone, carrying the input signal z[k] of the arrangement, is coupled to a first input of a subtracter 14. The output of the adaptive filter 10 is connected to a second input of the subtracter 14, and to an input of the means for determining an estimate of the frequency spectrum of the interfering signal, further to be referred to as spectrum determining means 12. The output of the subtracter 14 is coupled to an input of a filter 16. The output of the spectrum determination means 12 is connected to a control input of the filter 16. At the output of the filter 16 an estimate r′[k] of the signal s[k] is available.
In the echo canceller according to
The spectrum determining means 12 determine the frequency spectrum of the output signal of the adaptive filter 10. From this frequency spectrum, the setting for the filter 16 is determined. The filter 16 is arranged for suppressing the spectral components of the output signal of the subtracter having a strong contribution from the interfering signal. It is conceivable that the input of the spectrum determining means is connected to the input of the adaptive filter 10 instead to its output, because the signal x[k] is also a reasonable estimate for the interfering component in the input signal. It is also possible that the estimate for the interfering component is made during the absence of the signal s[k]. In this case a speech activity detector has to be added to the arrangement. With respect to the position of the filter 16 it is observed that it is possible that the filter 16 is present between the microphone 8 and the subtracter 14.
In the noise canceller according to
An output of a microphone 22, carrying output signal x1[k] is connected to an input of an adaptive filter 30. The output of the adaptive filter 30 is connected to a first input of an adder 36. An output of a microphone 24, carrying output signal x2[k] is connected to an input of an adaptive filter 32. The output of the adaptive filter 32 is connected to a second input of the adder 36. An output of a microphone 26, carrying output signal x3[k] is connected to an input of an adaptive filter 34. The output of the adaptive filter 34 is connected to a third input of the adder 36.
The output of the adder 36 is connected to a second input of the subtracter 38 and to an input of spectrum determining means 42. The output of the subtracter 38, carrying output signal r[k] is connected to an input of a filter 40. an output of the spectrum determination means 24 is connected to a control input of the filter 40. At the output of the filter the signal r′[k] substantially free from the interfering component is available.
The noise canceller according to
In the implementation of the adaptive filter according to
An output of the frequency domain adaptive filter 50 is connected to a second input of the subtracter 56. The output of the subtracter 56 is connected to a second input of the frequency domain adaptive filter 50. A second output of the frequency domain adaptive filter is connected to an input of an Inverse Fast Fourier Transformer 52. Said output of the frequency domain adaptive filter 50 carries the parameters of said frequency domain adaptive filter 50. The output of the Inverse Fast Fourier Transformer is connected to an input of the time domain programmable filter 54.
The adaptive filter 50 is realised in the frequency domain because a time-domain adaptive filter for the necessary length of the impulse response is of much greater complexity than a frequency-domain adaptive filter. In addition, a time-domain adaptive filter has the disadvantage that adapting its impulse response of the echo path for signals having a strong auto correlation takes much longer than for a frequency-domain adaptive filter for which a decorrelation that is simple to implement is used, introducing such decorrelation into a time-domain adaptive filter would involve much greater complexity.
In the frequency domain filter 50, blocks of samples of the signals xi[k] and r″[k] are subjected to an orthogonal transform e.g. a Fast Fourier Transform to obtain the signals Xi[p,m] and R″[p;m], in which p is the normalised frequency, and m is the block number. In the frequency-domain filter 50 the correlation measure Xi*[p;m]·R″[p;m] is calculated. Subsequently the frequency-domain coefficients W[p;m] of the filter 50 are updated according to the LMS algorithm. For the frequency-domain coefficients can be written:
W[p;m]=W[p;m−1]+μ[p;m]·Xi*[p;m]·R″[p;m] (1)
In (1) μ is a gain factor which may be dependent on the power of Xi[p;m]. The actual filtering takes place by multiplying the signal Xi[p;m] by the coefficients W[p;m] Subsequently the filtered signal is subjected to an Inverse Fast fourier transform to obtain the time-domain filtered signal to be applied to the second input of the subtracter 56. The frequency domain coefficients from the adaptive filter 50 are transformed into time-domain filter coefficients. These time domain filter coefficients are applied to the time-domain programmable filter 54, which actually determines the replica of the interfering component. The filter 9 is realised in the time domain because the signal to be filtered is not subjected to an additional delay in contradistinction to a frequency domain adaptive filter in which a certain additional delay is unavoidable.
In the combination of the means 12 for estimating the frequency spectrum of the interfering component and the filter 16 according to
The signal r[k] is applied to an input of a window processor 66. The output of the window processor 66 is connected to an input of a Fast Fourier transformer 68. The output of the Fast Fourier Transformer 68 is connected to an input of an amplitude detector 74 and to a second input of the calculator 78. The output of the amplitude detector 74 is connected to a third output of the calculator 78.
The signal z[k] is applied to a window processor 70. The output of the window processor 70 is connected to an input of an Fast Fourier Transformer 72. The output of the Fast Fourier Transformer 72 is connected to an amplitude detector 76. The output of the amplitude detector 76 is connected to a fourth input of the calculator 78.
The output of the calculator 78 is connected to an input of an Inverse Fast Fourier transformer 80. At the output of the Inverse Fourier Transformer 80 the output signal r′[k] is available.
In the window processor 66, the most recent block of 128 samples of the signal r[k] is placed together with the most recent block but one of 128 samples into a buffer memory of 256 samples. The content of the buffer memory is windowed with a so-called Hanning window. Subsequently the most recent block of 128 samples of the signal r[k] is stored for used in the next window operation, and the most recent block but one of 128 samples is discarded. The operation of the window processors 60 and 70 is the same as the operation of the window processor 66.
The Fast Fourier Transformers 62, 68 and 72 calculate a 256 points FFT from their respective input signals to obtain the signals Y(ω), R(ω) and Z(ω). The amplitude detectors 64, 74 and 76 determine the amplitude of the frequency spectrum according to:
Ya(ω)=|{Y(ω)}|+|{Y(ω)}| (2)
Ra(ω)=|{R(ω)}|+|{R(ω)}| (3)
Za(ω)=|{Z(ω)}|+|{Z(ω)}| (4)
In (2), (3) and (4) {x} indicates the real part of x, and {x} indicates the imaginary part of x. The approximation of the amplitude of the frequency spectra according to (2), (3) and (4) is used to simplify the calculations.
The calculator 78 starts with calculating a first estimate of the amplitude of the frequency spectrum of the signal S. A possible expression for the amplitude spectrum Sa of S is:
Sa(ω)=MAX[0,(Za−γ(Ya(ω))α)β] (5)
In (5) α and β are constants normally having a value between 0.5 and 2. γ is a constant having a value around 1 or larger than 1. A suitable value is 1.5. The MAX function is introduced in (5) for preventing the amplitude spectrum to assume negative values. Experiments have shown that simplification of (5) by choosing α and β equal to 1 does not result in any audible degradation. Consequently (5) changes into:
Sa(ω)=Max[0,Za(ω)−γ·Ya(ω)] (6)
In order to reduce the filtering action according to (6) in cases the adaptive filter 10 provides sufficient suppression of the interfering component, a spectral floor is introduced in (6) according to:
∀ω:Sa(ω)=MAX[Sa(ω),C·Za(ω)] (7)
In (7) C is a constant having a value around 0.003. Because the amplitude spectrum R′(ω)≈S(ω) of the filtered signal r′[k] is equal to H(ω)·Ra(ω), for H(ω) can be written: H(ω)=Sa(ω)/Ra(ω). In order to limit the maximum value of H(ω), H(ω) is made equal to MIN(1, Sa(ω)/Ra(ω)). Before H(ω) is used to filter the signal r[k], a smoothed version of H(ω) is derived according to: In (8) m is the block number and μ is a constant with value of 0.7.
Hm(ω)=μHm-1(ω)+(1−μ)H(ω) (8)
The frequency spectrum of the signal r′[k] is now determined from:
R′(ω)=R(ω)·Hm(ω) (9)
The output signal of the calculator 78 is transformed into the time domain by the 256 points Inverse Fourier transform 80. The first 128 points of the Inverse FFT are added to the final 128 points of the Inverse FFT previously calculated. The final 128 points of the present Inverse FFT are stored for combination with the first 128 points of the next IFFT to be calculated.
In the arrangement 5, the signal Ya(ω) is determined directly from the output signal y[k] of the adaptive filter 10. However it is possible to obtain an even better estimation of Ya(ω) Normally the length of the impulse response of the adaptive filter will be limited. Consequently the echo signal present in the signal z[k] will show a tail being not reproduced by the adaptive filter. However, it is possible to include this tail in the estimation of Ya(ω) as will be explained below.
For the amplitude spectrum Ya(ω) of the echo signal can be written:
Ya(ω)=Yaf(ω)+Ytail(ω) (10)
In (10), Yaf(ω) is the amplitude spectrum of the output signal of the adaptive filter, and Ytail(ω) is the amplitude spectrum of the residual echo. If it is assumed that the impulse response of the echo path decreases exponentially, the amplitude spectrum of the residual echo signal can be estimated from the output signal of the adaptive filter according to:
Ytail[m](ω)=α·Ytail[m−1](ω)+β·Yaf[m−p](ω) (11)
In (11) α and β are constants, m is an index indicating subsequently determined amplitude spectra Yaf(ω), and p is the length of the adaptive filter expressed in a number of update periods of Yaf(ω). In case the signal Y is stationary, (11) can be approximated by
Ytail[m](ω)=α·Ytail[m−1](ω)+β·Yaf[m](ω) (12)
For a filter having an impulse response of 1024 samples, and if an update period of 128 samples is used for Yaf(ω), suitable values for α and β are 0.79 and 0.04 respectively.
In the combination of the means 12 for estimating the frequency spectrum of the interfering component and the filter 16, the signal y[k] is applied to a linear predictive analyser 84. This linear predictive analyser determines a plurality of prediction coefficients a[i]. The transformer arrangement 86 performs a transformation to the prediction coefficient such as a bandwidth expansion according to a′[i]=a[i]·δi in which δ is a number smaller than 1. The transformed prediction coefficients are used to control the filter 16, in order to suppress the frequency components for which the interfering component has a substantial amount of energy. A suitable filter could have the transfer function:
In (10) p, q and μ are constants smaller than 1 and p being smaller than q. (10) is based on the inverse transfer function of a post filter used in speech coding. The object of such a post filter is to enhance the part of the spectrum in which speech components are present, and to suppress noise components in the part of the spectrum in which no speech components are present. By taking a filter with an inverse transfer function, the part of the spectrum in which no interfering component is present is enhanced, and the part of the spectrum in which a strong interfering component is present is attenuated.
Patent | Priority | Assignee | Title |
8577159, | Sep 14 2010 | Malikie Innovations Limited | Methods and devices for data compression with adaptive filtering in the transform domain |
Patent | Priority | Assignee | Title |
4609787, | May 21 1984 | Comsat Corporation | Echo canceller with extended frequency range |
4742510, | Apr 04 1986 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology; MASSACHUSETTS INSTUTUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | Near and far echo canceller for data communications |
4747132, | Apr 09 1984 | Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. | Howling canceller |
4827472, | Aug 17 1984 | TELECOMMUNICATIONS RADIOELECTRIQUES ET TELEPHONIQUES T R T , 88, RUE BRILLAT SAVARIN, 75013 PARIS, FRANCE, A CORP OF FRANCE | Echo canceller using delta modulation |
4847897, | Dec 11 1987 | American Telephone and Telegraph Company; AT&T Information Systems | Adaptive expander for telephones |
4862450, | Jul 21 1980 | PHILIPS COMMUNICATION D ENTREPRISE | Arrangement for cancelling a composite echo signal |
4947361, | Sep 28 1988 | Unisys Corporation | Narrowband parameter estimator |
4956838, | Mar 15 1988 | ETAT FRANCAIS REPRESENTE PAR LE MINISTRE DES POSTES, TELECOMMUNICATIONS ET DE L ESPACE CENTRE NATIONAL D ETUDES DES TELECOMMUNICATIONS | Echo cancelling device with frequency sub-band filtering |
4984265, | Mar 03 1987 | Device for forming the hands-free function in a telephone set, associating the gain switching and echo suppression functions | |
4998241, | Dec 01 1988 | U S PHILIPS CORPORATION | Echo canceller |
5014294, | Feb 01 1990 | MOTOROLA, INC , SCHAUMBURG, IL A CORP OF DE | Speakerphone for cellular telephones with howl prevention, detection, elimination and determination |
5153875, | Mar 25 1991 | LEVEL ONE COMMUNICATIONS, INC A CORP OF CA | Adaptive balancing network |
5157690, | Oct 30 1990 | Level One Communications, Inc. | Adaptive convergent decision feedback equalizer |
5199065, | Oct 18 1989 | LANTIQ BETEILIGUNGS-GMBH & CO KG | Method for automatic speech direction reversal, and circuit configuration for performing the method |
5307405, | Sep 25 1992 | Qualcomm Incorporated | Network echo canceller |
5390250, | Dec 18 1990 | U S PHILIPS CORPORATION A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE | Echo canceller with improved doubletalk detection |
5406552, | Nov 14 1991 | Motorola Mobility, Inc | Device and method for linear listener echo cancellation |
5475731, | Jan 07 1994 | ERICSSON GE MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS INC | Echo-canceling system and method using echo estimate to modify error signal |
5526426, | Nov 08 1994 | CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC , A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION; Cisco Systems, Inc | System and method for an efficiently constrained frequency-domain adaptive filter |
5587998, | Mar 03 1995 | AT&T Corp | Method and apparatus for reducing residual far-end echo in voice communication networks |
5592548, | May 31 1995 | Qualcomm Incorporated | System and method for avoiding false convergence in the presence of tones in a time-domain echo cancellation process |
5663955, | Aug 25 1995 | AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES GENERAL IP SINGAPORE PTE LTD | Echo canceller system with shared coefficient memory |
5668794, | Sep 29 1995 | Cirrus Logic, INC | Variable gain echo suppressor |
5745564, | Jan 26 1995 | POPKIN FAMILY ASSETS, L L C | Echo cancelling arrangement |
5790657, | Jan 26 1995 | NEC Corporation | Echo suppressor capable of suppressing an echo resulting from acoustic coupling without spoiling a natural sound of conversation |
5848151, | Jan 24 1995 | Rockstar Bidco, LP | Acoustical echo canceller having an adaptive filter with passage into the frequency domain |
5937060, | Feb 09 1996 | Texas Instruments Incorporated | Residual echo suppression |
Executed on | Assignor | Assignee | Conveyance | Frame | Reel | Doc |
Jun 22 2004 | Koninklijke Philips Electronics, N.V. | (assignment on the face of the patent) | / |
Date | Maintenance Fee Events |
Oct 07 2010 | M1552: Payment of Maintenance Fee, 8th Year, Large Entity. |
Oct 08 2014 | M1553: Payment of Maintenance Fee, 12th Year, Large Entity. |
Date | Maintenance Schedule |
Jul 20 2013 | 4 years fee payment window open |
Jan 20 2014 | 6 months grace period start (w surcharge) |
Jul 20 2014 | patent expiry (for year 4) |
Jul 20 2016 | 2 years to revive unintentionally abandoned end. (for year 4) |
Jul 20 2017 | 8 years fee payment window open |
Jan 20 2018 | 6 months grace period start (w surcharge) |
Jul 20 2018 | patent expiry (for year 8) |
Jul 20 2020 | 2 years to revive unintentionally abandoned end. (for year 8) |
Jul 20 2021 | 12 years fee payment window open |
Jan 20 2022 | 6 months grace period start (w surcharge) |
Jul 20 2022 | patent expiry (for year 12) |
Jul 20 2024 | 2 years to revive unintentionally abandoned end. (for year 12) |