A new method for speech enhancement based on optimal filtering, subbands, and higher-order cumulants is proposed in this paper. The key idea is to use the 4th cumulant to estimate the parameters required for the enhancement fil-ters: It is shown that the kurtosis of noisy speech may be used to estimate the SNR and the probability of speech presence when speech is divided in narrow bands and mod-eled as a sinusoidal signal. The resulting algorithm is tested in typical mobile noise conditions and proves effective under such types as street, office and fan noises. Compared to the TIA IS-127 standard for noise reduction, the proposed algorithm is better at preserving the harmonic structure of the speech and results in overall more noise reduction in Gaussian-like conditions. However, this comes at the cost of slightly more noise artifact, mostly at very low SNR and non-Gaussian conditions.
Cite as: Nemer, E., Goubran, R., Mahmoud, S. (1999) Speech enhancement using fourth-order cumulants and time-domain optimal filters. Proc. 6th European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology (Eurospeech 1999), 2623-2626, doi: 10.21437/Eurospeech.1999-578
@inproceedings{nemer99b_eurospeech,
author={Elias Nemer and Rafik Goubran and Samy Mahmoud},
title={{Speech enhancement using fourth-order cumulants and time-domain optimal filters}},
year=1999,
booktitle={Proc. 6th European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology (Eurospeech 1999)},
pages={2623--2626},
doi={10.21437/Eurospeech.1999-578}
}