Speech enhancement based on the general transfer function GSC and postfiltering

• Published in: IEEE transactions on speech and audio processing Vol. 12; no. 6; pp. 561 - 571
• Main Authors: Gannot, S., Cohen, I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.11.2004; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Algorithms; Applied sciences; Arrays; Concatenated codes; Degradation; Detection, estimation, filtering, equalization, prediction; Exact sciences and technology; Frequency; Information, signal and communications theory; Low-frequency noise; Microphone arrays; Microphones; Multichannel; Noise; Noise cancellation; Noise reduction; Signal and communications theory; Signal processing; Signal, noise; Speech; Speech enhancement; Speech processing; Telecommunications and information theory; Transfer functions; Working environment noise; Performance evaluation; Microphone; Noise; Noise reduction; microphone arrays; nonstationarity; Objective analysis; Generalized function; Non stationary condition; Algorithm; Subjective evaluation; Beam forming; Interference suppression; Generalized sidelobe canceller; Speech enhancement; Transfer function; Sensor array; Multiple channel; Speech processing; postfiltering
• ISSN: 1063-6676
• DOI: 10.1109/TSA.2004.834599

In speech enhancement applications microphone array postfiltering allows additional reduction of noise components at a beamformer output. Among microphone array structures the recently proposed general transfer function generalized sidelobe canceller (TF-GSC) has shown impressive noise reduction abilities in a directional noise field, while still maintaining low speech distortion. However, in a diffused noise field less significant noise reduction is obtainable. The performance is even further degraded when the noise signal is nonstationary. In this contribution we propose three postfiltering methods for improving the performance of microphone arrays. Two of which are based on single-channel speech enhancers and making use of recently proposed algorithms concatenated to the beamformer output. The third is a multichannel speech enhancer which exploits noise-only components constructed within the TF-GSC structure. This work concentrates on the assessment of the proposed postfiltering structures. An extensive experimental study, which consists of both objective and subjective evaluation in various noise fields, demonstrates the advantage of the multichannel postfiltering compared to the single-channel techniques.