An acoustic shock limiting algorithm using time and frequency domain speech features

The phenomenon of acoustic shock occurs when a headset user is subjected to an audio disturbance at an uncomfortable or unsafe level. In this paper, a new acoustic shock limiting algorithm is proposed which reduces the output level by utilizing both time and frequency domains limiting features. During acoustic shocks, the algorithm improves the intelligibility of the underlying speech and minimizes the artifacts by reducing the shock in the subbands based on the narrowband and broadband characteristics of the input signal. The algorithm is implemented on a low power DSP system where the input data is analyzed in both time and frequency domains. The method is tested for sinusoidal and speech inputs. The results demonstrate shock compression and limiting, with reduced speech distortion during shock onset and good overall speech quality.