METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SPEECH ENHANCEMENT IN A SPEECH COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

摘要

A speech communication system comprises a receiving unit 14 which receives speech data and uses that data to output speech 15. The characteristics of the speech received by the decoding unit are altered by a processing unit 10 based upon an analysis of the listener's current background noise before the speech is output to enhance its intelligibility to a listener. An analysis unit 12 determines the type and level of the background noise by use of a microphone 13. A decision unit 11 then determines whether the speech currently being received and replayed would be intelligible to an average listener in the current background noise. If the decision unit 11 determines that the speech is readily intelligible then no processing is necessary and the processing unit 10 does not alter the speech which has been passed to it. However, if the decision unit 11 determines that the speech would be unintelligible, then processing is necessary and the processing unit 10 alters the speech before passing it to the output to make the speech more intelligible. A method of operating the apparatus is also described. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the speech characteristics are altered by altering line spectral pair data representing the speech.