Artificial intelligence pattern-recognition-based noise reduction system

Abstract

A system is provided to reduce noise from a signal of speech that is contaminated by noise. The present system employs an artificial intelligence that is capable of deciding upon the adjustment of a filter subsystem by distinguishing between noise and speech in the spectrum of the incoming signal of speech plus noise. The system does this by testing the pattern of a power or envelope function of the frequency spectrum of the incoming signal. The system determines that the fast changing portions of that envelope denote speech whereas the residual is determined to be the frequency distribution of the noise power. This determination is done while examining either the whole spectrum, or frequency bands thereof, regardless of where the maximum of the spectrum lies. In another embodiment of the invention, a feedback loop is incorporated which provides incremental adjustments to the filter by employing a gradient search procedure to attempt to increase certain speech-like features in the system's output. The present system does not require consideration of minima of functions of the incoming signal or pauses in speech. Instead, the present system employs an artificial intelligence system to which is input the envelope pattern of the incoming signal of speech and noise. The present system then filters out of this envelope signal the rapidly changing variations of the envelope over fixed time windows.