Abstract: A back-up battery system for a switching equipment load in a telephone central office wherein the back-up battery system includes one or more rechargeable batteries having cells floated at a given float voltage and of a number such that when the batteries are switched in circuit across the load, the voltage of the batteries exceeds a minimum load voltage for a preselected period, and further being of a number such that the float voltage of the batteries exceeds a maximum load voltage.

Abstract: A filter for filtering a speech signal to reduce acoustic noise is disclosed. In accordance with the inventive filter, the parameters of an all-pole vocal tract model are first estimated from the noisy signal using a least mean square algorithm as if no noise were present, and then the speech signal is filtered using an approximate limiting Kalman filter constructed according to the estimated parameters.

Abstract: An adaptive nonlinear data driven echo canceller is disclosed. Unlike other approaches to nonlinear echo cancellation, the inventive echo canceller treats the nonlinearity of the echo path as nonlinear noise associated with transmitting data symbols through a linear echo path. In comparison to a conventional LMS data driven linear echo canceller, the inventive echo canceller utilizes only an additional small random access memory for storing a nonlinear function for estimating the effect of the nonlinear echo path on transmitted data symbols. The same LMS algorithm is used to estimate the linear echo path and the nonlinear function. The signal processing power of a conventional linear data driven LMS echo canceller is sufficient to implement the inventive nonlinear echo canceller and the convergence speed of the nonlinear echo canceller can be less than three times that of the conventional linear LMS echo canceller.