Method of noise reduction based on dynamic aspects of speech

1. A method for reducing noise in a noisy input signal, the method comprising:

converting a frame of the noisy input signal into an input feature vector;

obtaining a static-based prediction for a noise-reduced feature vector using a prior model of static aspects of clean signals;

obtaining a dynamic-based prediction for the noise-reduced feature vector using a prior model of dynamic aspects of clean signals;

combining the static-based prediction and the dynamic-based prediction to form at least part of a combined prediction; and

multiplying the combined prediction by a measure of the probability of the input feature vector occurring to produce at least one component of the noise-reduced feature vector.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

performing the steps of obtaining a static-based prediction, obtaining a dynamic-based prediction, determining a measure of the probability of the input feature vector occurring, combining the static-based prediction and the dynamic-based prediction, and multiplying the combined prediction by the measure of the probability for each of a set of mixture components, each mixture component providing a component of the reduced-noise feature vector; and

combining each component of the reduced-noise feature vector together to form the reduced-noise feature vector.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining a static-based prediction comprises using a mean of a distribution of the prior model of static aspects of clean signals as the static-based prediction.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining a dynamic-based prediction comprises adding a noise-reduced feature vector from a preceding frame to a mean of a distribution of the prior model of dynamic aspects of clean signals.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein combining the static-based prediction and the dynamic-based prediction comprises:

multiplying the static-based prediction by a static-specific weighting value to produce a weighted static-based prediction;

multiplying the dynamic-based prediction by a dynamic-specific weighting value to produce a weighted dynamic-based prediction;

adding the weighted static-based prediction to the weighted dynamic-based prediction to form at least part of the combined prediction.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the static-specific weighting value is a function of a variance of a distribution in the prior model of dynamic aspects of clean signals.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein the dynamic-specific weighting value is a function of a variance of a distribution in the prior model of static aspects of clean signals.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising obtaining an acoustic environment-based prediction of the noise-reduced feature vector and wherein combining the static-based prediction and the dynamic-based prediction further comprises combining the static-based prediction, the dynamic-based prediction and the acoustic environment-based prediction to form at least part of the combined prediction.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein obtaining an acoustic environment-based prediction comprises:

estimating noise in a frame of the noisy input signal; and

using the noise estimate in a function to determine the acoustic environment-based prediction.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein using the noise estimate in a function comprises using the noise estimate in a function that includes a Taylor Series approximation.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the Taylor series approximation is a zero-th order Taylor series expansion.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein using the noise estimate in a function further comprises also using the input feature vector in the function.

13. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:

using a prior model of static aspects of clean speech to produce a static-based predicted value;

using a prior model of dynamic aspects of clean speech to produce a dynamic-based predicted value;

applying a noisy feature vector representing a frame of noisy speech and an estimate of the noise in the frame to an acoustic environment model to produce an acoustic environment-based predicted value wherein the acoustic environment model is based on a non-linear function that describes a relationship between a noisy feature vector, a clean feature vector, and a noise feature vector; and

combining the static-based predicted value, the dynamic-based predicted value and the acoustic environment-based predicted value to form at least one component of a noise-reduced feature vector.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 wherein using a prior model of static aspects of clean speech comprises selecting a mean of a distribution in the prior model of static aspects of clean speech as the static-based predicted value.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 wherein using a prior model of dynamic aspects of clean speech comprises adding a noise-reduced feature vector to a mean of a distribution in the prior model of dynamic aspects of clean speech to produce the dynamic-based predicted value.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 wherein the acoustic environment model is formed from a Taylor series approximation to the non-linear function.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 wherein combining the static-based predicted value, the dynamic-based predicted value and the acoustic environment-based predicted value comprises:

applying separate weights to each of the static-based predicted value, the dynamic-based predicted value and the acoustic environment-based predicted value to form a weighted static-based value, a weighted dynamic-based value and a weighted acoustic environment-based value; and

summing the weighted static-based value, the weighted dynamic-based value and the weighted acoustic environment -based value.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the weight applied to the static-based predicted value is a function of a variance for a distribution in the prior model of the dynamic aspects of clean speech.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the weight applied to the dynamic-based predicted value is a function of a variance for a distribution in the prior model of the static aspects of clean speech.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 further comprising:

repeating the steps to produce a static-based predicted value, to produce a dynamic-based predicted value, to produce an acoustic environment-based predicted value, and to combine the static-based predicted value, the dynamic-based predicted value and the acoustic environment-based predicted value for each mixture component in a set of mixture components to thereby produce a set of components for the noise-reduced feature vector; and

combining the components in the set of components for the noise-reduced feature vector to produce the noise-reduced feature vector.

21. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:

using a prior model of static aspects of clean speech to produce a static-based predicted value;

using a prior model of dynamic aspects of clean speech to produce a dynamic-based predicted value;

applying a noisy feature vector representing a frame of noisy speech to an acoustic environment model to produce an acoustic environment-based predicted value; and

combining the static-based predicted value, the dynamic-based predicted value and the acoustic environment-based predicted value to form at least one component of a noise-reduced feature vector through steps comprising:

applying separate weights to each of the static-based predicted value, the dynamic-based predicted value and the acoustic environment-based predicted value to form a weighted static-based value, a weighted dynamic-based value and a weighted acoustic environment-based value; and

summing the weighted static-based value, the weighted dynamic-based value and the weighted acoustic environment-based value.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 21 wherein using a prior model of static aspects of clean speech comprises selecting a mean of a distribution in the prior model of static aspects of clean speech as the static-based predicted value.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 21 wherein using a prior model of dynamic aspects of clean speech comprises adding a noise-reduced feature vector to a mean of a distribution in the prior model of dynamic aspects of clean speech to produce the dynamic-based predicted value.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 21 wherein applying a noisy feature vector to an acoustic environment model further comprises applying an estimate of the noise in the frame to the acoustic environment model.

25. The computer-readable medium of claim 24 wherein the acoustic environment model is based on a non-linear function that describes a relationship between a noisy feature vector, a clean feature vector, and a noise feature vector.

26. The computer-readable medium of claim 25 wherein the acoustic environment model is formed from a Taylor series approximation to the non-linear function.

27. The computer-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the weight applied to the static-based predicted value is a function of a variance for a distribution in the prior model of the dynamic aspects of clean speech.

28. The computer-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the weight applied to the dynamic-based predicted value is a function of a variance for a distribution in the prior model of the static aspects of clean speech.

29. The computer-readable medium of claim 21 further comprising:

repeating the steps to produce a static-based predicted value, to produce a dynamic-based predicted value, to produce an acoustic environment-based predicted value, and to combine the static-based predicted value, the dynamic-based predicted value and the acoustic environment-based predicted value for each mixture component in a set of mixture components to thereby produce a set of components for the noise-reduced feature vector; and

combining the components in the set of components for the noise-reduced feature vector to produce the noise-reduced feature vector.