System and method for adaptive intelligent noise suppression

1. A method for adaptively controlling a sub-band noise suppressor, comprising:

receiving a primary acoustic signal;

determining a speech loss distortion estimate based on the primary acoustic signal, the speech loss distortion estimate being an estimate of potential degradation of speech introduced by the noise suppressor and being a function of a signal-to-noise ratio estimate of the primary acoustic signal;

determining a control parameter and an adaptive modifier using the speech loss distortion estimate; and

controlling the sub-band noise suppressor using the control parameter and the adaptive modifier, so as to constrain the potential degradation of speech.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the speech loss distortion estimate comprises subtracting a calculated noise spectrum from a power spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising calculating the power spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising classifying noise and speech in the primary acoustic signal.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining an inter-level difference between the primary acoustic signal and a another acoustic signal, and

determining the control parameter and the adaptive modifier using the inter-level difference and speech loss distortion estimate.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the speech loss distortion estimate is a function of a weighted signal-to-noise ratio estimate of the primary acoustic signal.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sub-band noise suppressor is an enhancement filter having a filter equation, the filter equation being a function of the control parameter and the adaptive modifier.

8. A system for adaptively suppressing controlling a sub-band noise suppressor, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory, the memory storing a program and the program being executable by the processor to perform a method for adaptively controlling a sub-band noise suppressor, the method comprising:

receiving a primary acoustic signal,

determining a speech loss distortion estimate based on the primary acoustic signal, the speech loss distortion estimate being an estimate of potential degradation of speech introduced by the noise suppressor and being a function of a signal-to-noise ratio estimate of the primary acoustic signal,

determining a control parameter and an adaptive modifier using the speech loss distortion estimate, and

controlling the sub-band noise suppressor using the control parameter and the adaptive modifier, so as to constrain the potential degradation of speech.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein determining the speech loss distortion estimate comprises subtracting a calculated noise spectrum from a power spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the method further comprises:

determining an inter-level difference between the primary acoustic signal and another acoustic signal, and

determining the control parameter and the adaptive modifier using the inter-level difference and speech loss distortion estimate.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the energy module method further comprises calculating a power spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

12. The system of claim 8 wherein the method further comprises generating a primary spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

13. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor to perform a method for controlling a sub-band noise suppressor, the method comprising:

receiving a primary acoustic signal;

determining a speech loss distortion estimate based on the primary acoustic signal, the speech loss distortion estimate being an estimate of potential degradation of speech introduced by the noise suppressor and being a function of a signal-to-noise ratio estimate of the primary acoustic signal;

determining a control parameter and an adaptive modifier using the speech loss distortion estimate; and

controlling the sub-band noise suppressor using the control parameter and the adaptive modifier, so as to constrain the potential degradation of speech.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13 , the method further comprising:

determining an inter-level difference between the primary acoustic signal and another acoustic signal, and

determining the control parameter and the adaptive modifier using the inter-level difference and speech loss distortion estimate.

15. A method for adaptively suppressing noise comprising:

receiving a primary acoustic signal;

determining a speech loss distortion estimate based on the primary acoustic signal, the speech loss distortion estimate being an estimate of potential degradation of speech introduced by the noise suppressor and being a function of a signal-to-noise ratio estimate of the primary acoustic signal;

determining a control parameter and an adaptive modifier using the speech loss distortion estimate;

suppressing noise using the control parameter and the adaptive modifier to produce a noise suppressed signal, so as to constrain the potential degradation of speech;

generating and applying a comfort noise to the noise suppressed signal to produce an output signal; and

providing the output signal.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein determining the speech loss distortion estimate comprises subtracting a calculated noise spectrum from a power spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

17. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

determining an inter-level difference between the primary acoustic signal and a another acoustic signal, and

determining the control parameter and the adaptive modifier using the inter-level difference and speech loss distortion estimate.

18. A system for adaptively suppressing noise, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory, the memory storing a program and the program being executable by the processor to perform a method for adaptively suppressing noise, the method comprising:

receiving a primary acoustic signal;

determining a speech loss distortion estimate based on the primary acoustic signal, the speech loss distortion estimate being an estimate of potential degradation of speech introduced by the noise suppressor and being a function of a signal-to-noise ratio estimate of the primary acoustic signal;

determining a control parameter and an adaptive modifier using the speech loss distortion estimate;

suppressing noise using the control parameter and the adaptive modifier to produce a noise suppressed signal, so as to constrain the potential degradation of speech;

generating and applying a comfort noise to the noise suppressed signal to produce an output signal; and

providing the output signal.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein determining the speech loss distortion estimate comprises subtracting a calculated noise spectrum from a power spectrum of the primary acoustic signal.

20. The system of claim 18 , the method further comprising:

determining an inter-level difference between the primary acoustic signal and a another acoustic signal, and

determining the control parameter and the adaptive modifier using the inter-level difference and speech loss distortion estimate.