An approach to co-channel talker interference suppression using a sinusoidal model for speech

The technique fits a sinusoidal model to additive vocal speech segments so that the least-mean-squared error between the model and the summed waveforms is obtained. Enhancement is achieved by synthesizing a waveform from the sine waves attributed to the desired speaker. Least-squares estimation is applied to obtain sine-wave amplitudes and phases of both talkers, based on either a priori sine-wave frequencies or a priori fundamental frequency contours. When the frequencies of the two waveforms are closely spaced, the performance is significantly improved by exploring the time evolution of the sinusoidal parameters across multiple analysis frames. The least-squared-error approach is also extended, under restricted conditions, to estimate fundamental frequency contours of both speakers from the summed waveforms. The results obtained, although limited in their scope, provide evidence that the sinusoidal analysis/synthesis model with effective parameter estimation techniques offers a promising approach to the problem of cochannel talker-interference suppression over a range of conditions. >