Abstract: A speech enhancement apparatus includes: a noise estimating unit which estimates a noise component contained in a speech signal for each frequency band; a signal-to-noise ratio computing unit which computes, for each frequency band, a signal-to-noise ratio; a gain computing unit which selects a frequency band whose computed signal-to-noise ratio indicates that the signal component contained in the speech signal for the frequency band is recognizable, and which determines a gain indicating the degree of enhancement to be applied to the speech signal in accordance with the signal-to-noise ratio of the selected frequency band; and an enhancing unit which amplifies an amplitude component of a frequency domain signal in each frequency band in accordance with the gain, and which corrects the amplitude component of the frequency domain signal by subtracting the noise component from the amplitude component in each frequency band.

Abstract: An apparatus is provided for suppressing an echo signal included in a measured signal corresponding to a measured sound. In the apparatus, the measured signal and a reference signal in a time domain are transformed into a frequency domain, and calculated for obtaining each value of a ratio and a correlation between the measured signal and the reference signal in the frequency domain. With executing a comparison of the values of the ratio and the correlation, a coefficient is derived, where a product of the coefficient and the measured sound in the frequency domain gives an estimated value of the echo signal. The echo in the measured signal is suppressed with subtracting the estimation of the echo signal from the measured signal, respectively in the frequency domain.

Abstract: There is provided a signal processing apparatus, for suppressing a noise, which includes a first calculator to obtain a phase difference between two spectrum signals in a frequency domain transformed from sound signals received by at least two microphones to estimate a sound source by the phase difference, a second calculator to obtain a value representing a target signal likelihood and to determine a sound suppressing phase difference range at each frequency, in which a sound signal is suppressed, on the basis of the target signal likelihood, and a filter. The filter generate a synchronized spectrum signal by synchronizing each frequency component of one of the two spectrum signals to each frequency component of the other of the two spectrum signals for each frequency when the phase difference is within the sound suppressing phase difference range and to generate a filtered spectrum signal.

Abstract: A noise suppressing device receives sound signals through a plurality of sound-receiving units and suppresses noise components included in the input sound signals. The noise suppressing device includes a detecting unit which detects a usage pattern of the noise suppressing device from a plurality of usage patterns in which positional relationships of the plurality of sound-receiving units and/or positional relationships between the plurality of sound-receiving units and a target sound source are different from each other, a converting unit which converts using environment information used in a noise suppressing process to each of the sound signals inputted by the plurality of sound-receiving units into using environment information in accordance with a usage pattern detected by the detecting unit and a suppressing unit which performs the noise suppressing process using the using environment information converted by the converting unit to the sound signals.

Abstract: A sound processing device includes: a plurality of sound input units; a detecting unit for detecting a frequency component of each sound input to the plurality of sound signal unit, the each sound arriving from a direction approximately perpendicular to a line determined by arrangement positions of two sound input units among the plurality of sound input units; a correction coefficient unit for obtaining a correction coefficient for correcting a level of at least one of the sound signals generated from the input sounds by the two sound input units so as to match the levels of the sound signals with each other based on the sound of the detected frequency component; a correcting unit for correcting the level of at least one of the sound signals using the obtained correction coefficient; and a processing unit for performing a sound process based on the sound signal with the corrected level.

Abstract: A signal processing unit is provided. The signal processing unit includes an orthogonal transforming part including at least two sound input parts receiving input sound signals on a time axis, the orthogonal transforming part transforming two of the input sound signals into respective spectral signals on a frequency axis, a phase difference calculating part obtaining a phase difference between the two spectral signals on the frequency axis, and a filter part phasing, when the phase difference is within a given range, each component of a first one of the two spectral signals based on the phase difference at each frequency to calculate a phased spectral signal and combining the phased spectral signal and a second one of the two spectral signals to calculate a filtered spectral signal.

Abstract: A sound processing apparatus is provided for estimating the power of background noise using a directional sound receiving technology using a plurality of sound receiving units, computing a gain control value on the basis of the estimated power of background noise and a predetermined power target value, and outputting the gain control value, so that a delay time of starting gain control can be reduced, and a slow response of a speech recognition application program or degradation of the speech quality of a voice communication program can be prevented.

Abstract: A sound processor includes a conversion unit converts a reference sound signal corresponding to a base of sound to be output and an observation sound signal based on each of sound signals output by a plurality of sound receiving units into frequency components, an echo suppression unit estimates echo derived from sound based on a converted reference sound signal and suppressing the estimated echo in a converted observation sound signal, a noise suppression unit estimates noise based on an arrival direction of sound and suppressing the estimated noise in the converted observation sound signal and an integrating process unit suppresses, with respect to each frequency component, echo and noise in the converted sound signal based on a observation sound signal obtained after echo suppression and a observation sound signal obtained after noise suppression.

Abstract: A state detecting apparatus includes: a processor to execute acquiring utterance data related to uttered speech, computing a plurality of statistical quantities for feature parameters regarding features of the utterance data, creating, on the basis of the plurality of statistical quantities regarding the utterance data and another plurality of statistical quantities regarding reference utterance data based on other uttered speech, pseudo-utterance data having at least one statistical quantity equal to a statistical quantity in the other plurality of statistical quantities, computing a plurality of statistical quantities for synthetic utterance data synthesized on the basis of the pseudo-utterance data and the utterance data, and determining, on the basis of a comparison between statistical quantities of the synthetic utterance data and statistical quantities of the reference utterance data, whether the speaker who produced the uttered speech is in a first state or a second state; and a memory.

Abstract: An echo suppressing system includes: a sound output device for outputting sound based on a sound signal, including a passing section for allowing passage of a component of a different frequency band, and a plurality of sound output sections, each of which outputs sound based on each of the plurality of sound signals passed through the passing section; a summer for summing the plurality of sound signals to generate a reference sound signal; a sound input device for converting input sound into a sound signal; and an echo suppressor for suppressing echo based on the sound output by the sound output device, including an input section to which a sound signal is input from the sound input device as an observation sound signal, and a correction section for correcting the observation sound signal so as to suppress echo included in the observation sound signal.

Abstract: A microphone array apparatus includes: an acquisition unit configured to acquire samples from a sound signal inputted from each of a plurality of microphones, at predetermined time intervals; an operation unit configured to calculate a value based on volumes of the sound signal possessed by a plurality of the samples for each of the sound signals inputted from the plurality of microphones; a correlation coefficient calculator configured to calculate a coefficient of correlation between the sound signals, on the basis of the values calculated for the respective sound signals; and a gain calculator configured to calculate reduction gain for the sound signals inputted from the plurality of microphones, on the basis of the coefficient of correlation.

Abstract: A sound signal correcting apparatus converts an acquired sound signal into a phase spectrum and an amplitude spectrum by an FFT process, compares the amplitude spectrum of the obtained sound signal with a noise model so that a correction coefficient used for correcting the amplitude spectrum of the sound signal is derived, smoothes waveform of the amplitude spectrum of the sound signal using the derived correction coefficient, and converts the sound signal into a sound signal where the amplitude spectrum is corrected by performing an inverse FFT process on the phase spectrum and the smoothed amplitude spectrum.

Abstract: A state detecting device includes an input unit that receives an input voice sound; an analyzer that calculates a feature parameter of each of plurality of frames extracted from the voice sound; a calculator that calculates the average of the feature parameters of the frames, determines a threshold on the basis of the average and statistical data representing relationships between other averages of other feature parameters obtained from a plurality of speakers and cumulative frequencies of the other feature parameters, and calculates an appearance frequency of a frame that is among the plurality of frames and whose feature parameter is larger than the threshold; a determining unit that determines, on the basis of the appearance frequency, a strained state of a vocal cord that has made the voice sound; and an output unit that outputs a result of the determination.

Abstract: A state detection device includes: a first model generation unit to generate a first specific speaker model obtained by modeling speech features of a specific speaker in an undepressed state; a second model generation unit to generate a second specific speaker model obtained by modeling speech features of the specific speaker in the depressed state; a likelihood calculation unit to calculate a first likelihood as a likelihood of the first specific speaker model with respect to input voice, and a second likelihood as a likelihood of the second specific speaker model with respect to the input voice; and a state determination unit to determine a state of the speaker of the input voice using the first likelihood and the second likelihood.

Abstract: A sound processing apparatus includes a first calculator that calculates first power based on a first signal received by a first microphone that is among the first microphone and a second microphone; a second calculator that calculates second power based on a second signal received by the second microphone; a gain calculator that calculates a gain on the basis of the ratio of the first power to the second power; and a multiplier that processes the second signal using the gain calculated by the gain calculator.

Abstract: A transfer function estimating device for estimating a transfer function of a sound, includes: a sound receiving module receiving a sound from a given sound source and converting the sound into a tone signal; a storage module storing first transfer functions of the sound propagating from the given sound source to the sound receiving module and transformation coefficients for converting the first transfer functions into given second transfer functions so as to associate with each other; a reference tone signal acquiring module acquiring a reference tone signal of the sound source; an acquiring module acquiring a transfer function of the sound received by the sound receiving module on the basis of the tone signal and the reference tone signal; a specifying module acquiring a cross-correlation value between the transfer function acquired by the acquiring module and each of the first transfer functions stored in the storage module.

Abstract: A microphone array device includes a first sound reception unit configured to obtain a first sound signal that is input from a first microphone, a second sound reception unit configured to obtain a second sound signal that is input from a second microphone, a noise state evaluation unit configured to compare the first sound signal and the second sound signal and to obtain an evaluation parameter to evaluate an influence of a non-target sound included in the second sound signal on a target sound included in the first sound signal according to a result of the comparison, a subtraction adjustment unit configured to set a suppression amount for the second sound signal based on the evaluation parameter and to generate a third sound signal; and a subtraction unit configured to generate a signal to be output based on the third sound signal and the first sound signal.

Abstract: An utterance state detection device includes an user voice stream data input unit that gets user voice stream data of an user, a frequency element extraction unit that extracts high frequency elements by frequency-analyzing the user voice stream data, a fluctuation degree calculation unit that calculates a fluctuation degree of the high frequency elements thus extracted every unit time, a statistic calculation unit that calculates a statistic every certain interval based on a plurality of the fluctuation degrees in a certain period of time, and an utterance state detection unit that detects an utterance state of a specified user based on the statistic obtained from user voice stream data of the specified user.

Abstract: A sound input from sound sources existing in a plurality of directions is accepted and converted into a signal on a frequency axis. A suppressing function to suppress the converted signal on a frequency axis is computed, an amplitude component of a signal on a frequency axis is multiplied by the computed suppressing function and the converted signal on a frequency axis is corrected. A phase component of each converted signal on a frequency axis is computed for each frequency and a difference of phase components is computed. A probability value indicative of probability of existence of a sound source in a predetermined direction is specified based on the computed difference and a suppressing function to suppress a sound input from a sound source other than a sound source in a predetermined direction is computed based on the specified probability value.

Abstract: Provided are a speech recognition system, a method and a storage medium capable of, even in a case where plural speakers input superimposed speeches, recognizing a speech of an individual each speaker and making a single application program sharable among the speakers in execution. In a speech recognition system receiving speeches of plural speakers to execute a predetermined application program, the received speeches are separated according to the respective speakers if necessary, the received speeches of individual speakers are speech-recognized, results of speech recognition are matched with data items necessary for executing the application program, one of results of recognition of plural speeches which are found as a result of the matching to be overlapping is selected, and the results of recognition of plural speeches which are found as a result of the matching not to be overlapping are linked to the selected result of speech recognition.