Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/005—Correction of errors induced by the transmission channel, if related to the coding algorithm
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/012—Comfort noise or silence coding
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/04—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis using predictive techniques
  • G10L19/08—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/04—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis using predictive techniques
  • G10L19/08—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters
  • G10L19/083—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters the excitation function being an excitation gain
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/04—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis using predictive techniques
  • G10L19/08—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters
  • G10L19/10—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters the excitation function being a multipulse excitation
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/04—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis using predictive techniques
  • G10L19/08—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters
  • G10L19/12—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters the excitation function being a code excitation, e.g. in code excited linear prediction [CELP] vocoders
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/04—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis using predictive techniques
  • G10L19/08—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters
  • G10L19/12—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters the excitation function being a code excitation, e.g. in code excited linear prediction [CELP] vocoders
  • G10L19/125—Pitch excitation, e.g. pitch synchronous innovation CELP [PSI-CELP]
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/04—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis using predictive techniques
  • G10L19/16—Vocoder architecture
  • G10L19/18—Vocoders using multiple modes
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/04—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis using predictive techniques
  • G10L19/26—Pre-filtering or post-filtering
  • G10L19/265—Pre-filtering, e.g. high frequency emphasis prior to encoding
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L21/00—Processing of the speech or voice signal to produce another audible or non-audible signal, e.g. visual or tactile, in order to modify its quality or its intelligibility
  • G10L21/02—Speech enhancement, e.g. noise reduction or echo cancellation
  • G10L21/0316—Speech enhancement, e.g. noise reduction or echo cancellation by changing the amplitude
  • G10L21/0364—Speech enhancement, e.g. noise reduction or echo cancellation by changing the amplitude for improving intelligibility
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/002—Dynamic bit allocation
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L19/04—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis using predictive techniques
  • G10L19/08—Determination or coding of the excitation function; Determination or coding of the long-term prediction parameters
  • G10L19/09—Long term prediction, i.e. removing periodical redundancies, e.g. by using adaptive codebook or pitch predictor
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L2019/0001—Codebooks
  • G10L2019/0004—Design or structure of the codebook
  • G10L2019/0005—Multi-stage vector quantisation
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L2019/0001—Codebooks
  • G10L2019/0007—Codebook element generation
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L19/00—Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis
  • G10L2019/0001—Codebooks
  • G10L2019/0011—Long term prediction filters, i.e. pitch estimation

Definitions

• the present invention relates generally to speech encoding and decoding in voice communication systems; and, more particularly, it relates to various techniques used with code- excited linear prediction coding to obtain high quality speech reproduction through a limited bit rate communication channel.
• LPC linear predictive coding
• a conventional source encoder operates on speech signals to extract modeling and parameter information for communication to a conventional source decoder via a communication channel. Once received, the decoder attempts to reconstruct a counterpart signal for playback that sounds to a human ear like the original speech.
• a certain amount of communication channel bandwidth is required to communicate the modeling and parameter information to the decoder.
• a reduction in the required bandwidth proves beneficial.
• the quality requirements in the reproduced speech limit the reduction of such bandwidth below certain levels.
• Speech encoding becomes increasingly difficult as transmission bit rates decrease. Particularly for noise encoding, perceptual quality diminishes significantly at lower bit rates.
• Straightforward code-excited linear prediction CELP
• CELP code-excited linear prediction
• this method may fail to provide perceptually accurate signal reproduction at lower bit rates.
• One such reason is that the pulse like excitation for noise signals becomes more sparse at these lower bit rates as less bits are available for coding and transmission, thereby resulting in annoying distortion of the noise signal upon reproduction.
• the inability to determine the optimal encoding mode for a given noise signal at a given bit rate also results in an inefficient use of encoding resources.
• the ability to selectively apply an optimal coding scheme at a given bit rate would provide more efficient use of an encoder processing circuit.
• the ability to select the optimal encoding mode for type of noise signal would further maximize the available encoding resources while providing a more perceptually accurate reproduction of the noise signal.
• a random codebook is implemented utilizing overlap in order to reduce storage space. This arrangement necessitates reference to a table or other index that lists the energies for each codebook vector. Accordingly, the table or other index, and the respective energy values, must be stored, thereby adding computational and storage complexity to such a system.
• the present invention re-uses each table codevector entry in a random table with "L" codevectors, each of dimension "N.” That is, for example, an exemplary codebook contains codevectors V o , Vj, . . . , V L , with each codevector V x being of dimension N, and having bits Co, Ci, ... , C N - I , C N Each codevector of dimension N is normalized to an energy value of unity, thereby reducing computational complexity to a minimum.
• Each codebook entry essentially acts as a circular buffer whereby N different random codebook vectors are generated by specifying a starting point at each different bit in a given codevector. Each of the different N codevectors then has unity energy.
• each table entry is identical to the dimension of the required random codevector and every element in a particular table entry will be in any codevector derived from this table entry. This arrangement dramatically reduces the necessary storage capacity of a given system, while maintaining minimal computational complexity.
• Fig. la is a schematic block diagram of a speech communication system illustrating the use of source encoding and decoding in accordance with the present invention.
• Fig. lb is a schematic block diagram illustrating an exemplary communication device utilizing the source encoding and decoding functionality of Fig. la.
• Figs. 2-4 are functional block diagrams illustrating a multi-step encoding approach used by one embodiment of the speech encoder illustrated in Figs, la and lb.
• Fig. 2 is a functional block diagram illustrating of a first stage of operations performed by one embodiment of the speech encoder of Figs, la and lb.
• Fig. 3 is a functional block diagram of a second stage of operations, while Fig.4 illustrates a third stage.
• Fig. 5 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the speech decoder shown in Figs, la and lb having corresponding functionality to that illustrated in Figs. 2-4.
• Fig. 6 is a block diagram of an alternate embodiment of a speech encoder that is built in accordance with the present invention.
• Fig. 7 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a speech decoder having corresponding functionality to that of the speech encoder of Fig. 6.
• Fig. 8 is a block diagram of the low complexity codebook structure in accordance with the present invention.
• Figure 9 is a block diagram of the low complexity codebook structure of the present invention that demonstrates that the table entries can be shifted in increments of two or more entries at a time.
• Figure 10 is a block diagram of the low complexity codebook of the present invention that demonstrates that the given codevectors can be pseudo-randomly repopulated with entries 0 through N.
• Fig la is a schematic block diagram of a speech communication system illustrating the use of source encoding and decoding in accordance with the present invention
• a speech communication system 100 supports communication and reproduction of speech across a communication channel 103
• the communication channel 103 typically comprises, at least in part, a radio frequency link that often must support multiple, simultaneous speech exchanges requiring shared bandwidth resources such as may be found with cellular telephony embodiments
• a storage device may be coupled to the communication channel 103 to temporarily store speech information for delayed reproduction or playback, e g , to perform answe ⁇ ng machine functionality, voiced email, etc.
• the communication channel 103 might be replaced by such a storage device in a single device embodiment of the communication system 100 that, for example, merely records and stores speech for subsequent playback
• a microphone 111 produces a speech signal in real time
• the microphone 1 11 delivers the speech signal to an A/D (analog to digital) converter 115
• the A/D converter 115 converts the speech signal to a digital form then delivers the digitized speech signal to a speech encoder 117
• the speech encoder 117 encodes the digitized speech by using a selected one of a plurality of encoding modes.
• Each of the plurality of encoding modes utilizes particular techniques that attempt to optimize quality of resultant reproduced speech
• the speech encoder 117 produces a se ⁇ es of modeling and parameter information (hereinafter "speech indices"), and delivers the speech indices to a channel encoder 119
• the channel encoder 1 19 coordinates with a channel decoder 131 to deliver the speech indices across the communication channel 103.
• the channel decoder 131 forwards the speech indices to a speech decoder 133. While operating in a mode that corresponds to that of the speech encoder 117, the speech decoder 133 attempts to recreate the original speech from the speech indices as accurately as possible at a speaker 137 via a D/A (digital to analog) converter 135.
• the speech encoder 1 17 adaptively selects one of the plurality of operating modes based on the data rate restrictions through the communication channel 103.
• the communication channel 103 comprises a bandwidth allocation between the channel encoder 1 19 and the channel decoder 131.
• the allocation is established, for example, by telephone switching networks wherein many such channels are allocated and reallocated as need arises. In one such embodiment, either a 22.8 kbps (kilobits per second) channel bandwidth, i.e., a full rate channel, or a 1 1.4 kbps channel bandwidth, i.e., a half rate channel, may be allocated.
• the speech encoder 1 17 may adaptively select an encoding mode that supports a bit rate of 11.0, 8.0, 6.65 or 5.8 kbps.
• the speech encoder 117 adaptively selects an either 8.0, 6.65, 5.8 or 4.5 kbps encoding bit rate mode when only the half rate channel has been allocated.
• these encoding bit rates and the aforementioned channel allocations are only representative of the present embodiment. Other variations to meet the goals of alternate embodiments are contemplated.
• the speech encoder 117 attempts to communicate using the highest encoding bit rate mode that the allocated channel will support. If the allocated channel is or becomes noisy or otherwise restrictive to the highest or higher encoding bit rates, the speech encoder 1 17 adapts by selecting a lower bit rate encoding mode. Similarly, when the communication channel 103 becomes more favorable, the speech encoder 117 adapts by switching to a higher bit rate encoding mode.
• the speech encoder 117 incorporates various techniques to generate better low bit rate speech reproduction. Many of the techniques applied are based on characteristics of the speech itself. For example, with lower bit rate encoding, the speech encoder 117 classifies noise, unvoiced speech, and voiced speech so that an appropriate modeling scheme corresponding to a particular classification can be selected and implemented. Thus, the speech encoder 117 adaptively selects from among a plurality of modeling schemes those most suited for the current speech. The speech encoder 117 also applies various other techniques to optimize the modeling as set forth in more detail below.
• Fig. lb is a schematic block diagram illustrating several variations of an exemplary communication device employing the functionality of Fig. la.
• a communication device 151 comprises both a speech encoder and decoder for simultaneous capture and reproduction of speech.
• the communication device 151 might, for example, comprise a cellular telephone, portable telephone, computing system, etc.
• the communication device 151 might, for example, comprise a cellular telephone, portable telephone, computing system, etc.
• the communication device 151 might comprise an answering machine, a recorder, voice mail system, etc.
• a microphone 155 and an A/D converter 157 coordinate to deliver a digital voice signal to an encoding system 159.
• the encoding system 159 performs speech and channel encoding and delivers resultant speech information to the channel.
• the delivered speech information may be destined for another communication device (not shown) at a remote location.
• a decoding system 165 performs channel and speech decoding then coordinates with a D/A converter 167 and a speaker 169 to reproduce something that sounds like the originally captured speech.
• the encoding system 159 comprises both a speech processing circuit 185 that performs speech encoding, and a channel processing circuit 187 that performs channel encoding.
• the decoding system 165 comprises a speech processing circuit 189 that performs speech decoding, and a channel processing circuit 191 that performs channel decoding.
• the speech processing circuit 185 and the channel processing circuit 187 are separately illustrated, they might be combined in part or in total into a single unit.
• the speech processing circuit 185 and the channel processing circuitry 187 might share a single DSP (digital signal processor) and/or other processing circuitry.
• the speech processing circuit 189 and the channel processing circuit 191 might be entirely separate or combined in part or in whole.
• combinations in whole or in part might be applied to the speech processing circuits 185 and 189, the channel processing circuits 187 and 191, the processing circuits 185, 187, 189 and 191, or otherwise.
• the encoding system 159 and the decoding system 165 both utilize a memory 161.
• the speech processing circuit 185 utilizes a fixed codebook 181 and an adaptive codebook 183 of a speech memory 177 in the source encoding process.
• the channel processing circuit 187 utilizes a channel memory 175 to perform channel encoding.
• the speech processing circuit 189 utilizes the fixed codebook 181 and the adaptive codebook 183 in the source decoding process.
• the channel processing circuit 187 utilizes the channel memory 175 to perform channel decoding.
• the speech memory 177 is shared as illustrated, separate copies thereof can be assigned for the processing circuits 185 and 189. Likewise, separate channel memory can be allocated to both the processing circuits 187 and 191.
• the memory 161 also contains software utilized by the processing circuits 185, 187,189 and 191 to perform various functionality required in the source and channel encoding and decoding processes.
• Figs. 2-4 are functional block diagrams illustrating a multi-step encoding approach used by one embodiment of the speech encoder illustrated in Figs, la and lb.
• Fig. 2 is a functional block diagram illustrating of a first stage of operations performed by one embodiment of the speech encoder shown in Figs, la and lb.
• the speech encoder which comprises encoder processing circuitry, typically operates pursuant to software instruction carrying out the following functionality.
• source encoder processing circuitry performs high pass filtering of a speech signal 21 1.
• the filter uses a cutoff frequency of around 80 Hz to remove, for example. 60 Hz power line noise and other lower frequency signals.
• the source encoder processing circuitry applies a perceptual weighting filter as represented by a block 219.
• the perceptual weighting filter operates to emphasize the valley areas of the filtered speech signal.
• a pitch preprocessing operation is performed on the weighted speech signal at a block 225.
• the pitch preprocessing operation involves warping the weighted speech signal to match interpolated pitch values that will be generated by the decoder processing circuitry.
• the warped speech signal is designated a first target signal 229. If pitch preprocessing is not selected the control block 245, the weighted speech signal passes through the block 225 without pitch preprocessing and is designated the first target signal 229
• the encoder processing circuitry applies a process wherein a contribution from an adaptive codebook 257 is selected along with a corresponding gain 257 which minimize a first error signal 253
• the first error signal 253 comp ⁇ ses the difference between the first target signal 229 and a weighted, synthesized contribution from the adaptive codebook 257
• the resultant excitation vector is applied after adaptive gain reduction to both a synthesis and a weighting filter to generate a modeled signal that best matches the first target signal 229.
• the encoder processing circuitry uses LPC (linear predictive coding) analysis, as indicated by a block 239, to generate filter parameters for the synthesis and weighting filters
• LPC linear predictive coding
• the encoder processing circuitry designates the first error signal 253 as a second target signal for matching using contributions from a fixed codebook 261
• the encoder processing circuitry searches through at least one of the plurality of subcodebooks within the fixed codebook 261 in an attempt to select a most approp ⁇ ate cont ⁇ bution while generally attempting to match the second target signal.
• the encoder processing circuitry selects an excitation vector, its corresponding subcodebook and gam based on a vanety of factors. For example, the encoding bit rate, the degree of minimization, and characteristics of the speech itself as represented by a block 279 are considered by the encoder processing circuitry at control block 275 Although many other factors may be considered, exemplary characte ⁇ stics include speech classification, noise level, sharpness, periodicity, etc Thus, by considering other such factors, a first subcodebook with its best excitation vector may be selected rather than a second subcodebook s best excitation vector even though the second subcodebook's better minimizes the second target signal 265
• Fig 3 is a functional block diagram depicting of a second stage of operations performed by the embodiment of the speech encoder illustrated in Fig. 2
• the speech encoding circuitry simultaneously uses both the adaptive the fixed codebook vectors found in the first stage of operations to minimize a third error signal 31 1
• the speech encoding circuitry searches for optimum gain values for the previously identified excitation vectors ( in the first stage) from both the adaptive and fixed codebooks 257 and 261 As indicated by blocks 307 and 309, the speech encoding circuitry identifies the optimum gain by generating a synthesized and weighted signal, I e , via a block 301 and 303, that best matches the first target signal 229 (which minimizes the third error signal 31 1)
• the first and second stages could be combined wherein joint optimization of both gain and adaptive and fixed codebook rector selection could be used
• Fig 4 is a functional block diagram depicting of a third stage of operations performed by the embodiment of the speech encoder illustrated in Figs 2 and 3
• the encoder processing circuitry applies gain normalization, smoothing and quantization, as represented by blocks 401, 403 and 405, respectively, to the jointly optimized gains identified in the second stage of encoder processing
• the adaptive and fixed codebook vectors used are those identified in the first stage processing
• the encoder processing circuitry With normalization, smoothing and quantization functionally applied, the encoder processing circuitry has completed the modeling process Therefore, the modeling parameters identified are communicated to the decoder
• the encoder processing circuitry delivers an index to the selected adaptive codebook vector to the channel encoder via a multiplexor 419.
• the encoder processing circuitry delivers the index to the selected fixed codebook vector, resultant gains, synthesis filter parameters, etc., to the muliplexor 419.
• the multiplexor 419 generates a bit stream 421 of such information for delivery to the channel encoder for communication to the channel and speech decoder of receiving device.
• Fig. 5 is a block diagram of an embodiment illustrating functionality of speech decoder having corresponding functionality to that illustrated in Figs. 2-4.
• the speech decoder which comprises decoder processing circuitry, typically operates pursuant to software instruction carrying out the following functionality.
• a demultiplexer 511 receives a bit stream 513 of speech modeling indices from an often remote encoder via a channel decoder. As previously discussed, the encoder selected each index value during the multi-stage encoding process described above in reference to Figs. 2-4.
• the decoder processing circuitry utilizes indices, for example, to select excitation vectors from an adaptive codebook 515 and a fixed codebook 519, set the adaptive and fixed codebook gains at a block 521, and set the parameters for a synthesis filter 531.
• the decoder processing circuitry With such parameters and vectors selected or set, the decoder processing circuitry generates a reproduced speech signal 539.
• the codebooks 515 and 519 generate excitation vectors identified by the indices from the demultiplexer 511.
• the decoder processing circuitry applies the indexed gains at the block 521 to the vectors which are summed.
• the decoder processing circuitry modifies the gains to emphasize the contribution of vector from the adaptive codebook 515.
• adaptive tilt compensation is applied to the combined vectors with a goal of flattening the excitation spectrum.
• the decoder processing circuitry performs synthesis filtering at the block 531 using the flattened excitation signal.
• post filte ⁇ ng is applied at a block 535 deemphasizing the valley areas of the reproduced speech signal 539 to reduce the effect of distortion.
• the A/D converter 1 15 (Fig. la) will generally involve analog to uniform digital PCM including: 1) an input level adjustment device; 2) an input anti-aliasing filter; 3) a sample-hold device sampling at 8 kHz; and 4) analog to uniform digital conversion to 13-bit representation.
• the D/A converter 135 will generally involve uniform digital PCM to analog including: 1) conversion from 13-bit/8 kHz uniform PCM to analog; 2) a hold device; 3) reconstruction filter including x/sin(x) correction; and 4) an output level adjustment device.
• the A/D function may be achieved by direct conversion to 13-bit uniform PCM format, or by conversion to 8-bit/ A-law compounded format.
• the inverse operations take place.
• the encoder 1 17 receives data samples with a resolution of 13 bits left justified in a 16-bit word. The three least significant bits are set to zero.
• the decoder 133 outputs data in the same format. Outside the speech codec, further processing can be applied to accommodate traffic data having a different representation.
• a specific embodiment of an AMR (adaptive multi-rate) codec with the operational functionality illustrated in Figs. 2-5 uses five source codecs with bit-rates 11.0, 8.0, 6.65, 5.8 and 4.55 kbps. Four of the highest source coding bit-rates are used in the full rate channel and the four lowest bit-rates in the half rate channel.
• All five source codecs within the AMR codec are generally based on a code-excited linear predictive (CELP) coding model.
• CELP code-excited linear predictive
• a 10th order linear prediction (LP), or short-term, synthesis filter, e.g.. used at the blocks 249, 267, 301, 407 and 531 (of Figs. 2-5), is used which is given by:
• a long-term filter i.e., the pitch synthesis filter
• the pitch synthesis filter is given by:
• T is the pitch delay and g p is the pitch gain.
• the excitation signal at the input of the short-term LP synthesis filter at the block 249 is constructed by adding two excitation vectors from the adaptive and the fixed codebooks 257 and 261, respectively.
• the speech is synthesized by feeding the two properly chosen vectors from these codebooks through the short-term synthesis filter at the block 249 and 267, respectively.
• the optimum excitation sequence in a codebook is chosen using an analysis-by-synthesis search procedure in which the error between the original and synthesized speech is minimized according to a perceptually weighted distortion measure.
• the perceptual weighting filter e.g., at the blocks 251 and 268, used in the analysis-by-synthesis search technique is given by:
• the weighting filter e.g., at the blocks 251 and 268, uses the unquantized LP parameters while the formant synthesis filter e g at the blocks 249 and 267. uses the quantized LP parameters Both the unquantized and quantized LP parameters are generated at the block 239
• the present encoder embodiment operates on 20 ms (millisecond) speech frames corresponding to 160 samples at the sampling frequency of 8000 samples per second At each 160 speech samples, the speech signal is analyzed to extract the parameters of the CELP model, l e . the LP filter coefficients, adaptive and fixed codebook indices and gains These parameters are encoded and transmitted At the decoder, these parameters are decoded and speech is synthesized by filtering the reconstructed excitation signal through the LP synthesis filter
• LP analysis at the block 239 is performed twice per frame but only a single set of LP parameters is converted to line spectrum frequencies (LSF) and vector quantized using predictive multi-stage quantization (PMVQ)
• LSF line spectrum frequencies
• PMVQ predictive multi-stage quantization
• the speech frame is divided into subframes Parameters from the adaptive and fixed codebooks 257 and 261 are transmitted every subframe
• the quantized and unquantized LP parameters or their interpolated versions are used depending on the subframe
• An open-loop pitch lag is estimated at the block 241 once or twice per frame for PP mode or LTP mode, respectively
• the encoder processing circuitry (operating pursuant to software instruction) computes x( n ) , the first target signal 229, by filte ⁇ ng the LP residual through the weighted synthesis filter W( z )H( z ) with the initial states of the filters having been updated by filte ⁇ ng the error between LP residual and excitation This is equivalent to an alternate approach of subtracting the zero input response of the weighted synthesis filter from the weighted speech signal
• the encoder processing circuitry computes the impulse response, n ) , of the
• the input original signal has been pitch-preprocessed to match the interpolated pitch contour, so no closed-loop search is needed.
• the LTP excitation vector is computed using the interpolated pitch contour and the past synthesized excitation.
• the encoder processing circuitry generates a new target signal x 2 ( n ) , the second
• the encoder processing circuitry uses the second target signal 253 in the fixed
• the gains of the adaptive and fixed codebook are scalar quantized with 4 and 5 bits respectively (with moving average prediction applied to the fixed codebook gain).
• the gains of the adaptive and fixed codebook are vector quantized (with moving average prediction applied to the fixed codebook gain).
• the filter memories are updated using the determined excitation signal for finding the first target signal in the next subframe.
• bit allocation of the AMR codec modes is shown in table 1. For example, for each 20 ms speech frame, 220, 160, 133 , 116 or 91 bits are produced, corresponding to bit rates of 1 1.0, 8.0. 6.65, 5.8 or 4.55 kbps, respectively.
• Table 1 Bit allocation of the AMR coding algorithm for 20 ms frame
• the decoder processing circuitry reconstructs the speech signal using the transmitted modeling indices extracted from the received bit stream by the demultiplexor 51 1.
• the decoder processing circuitry decodes the indices to obtain the coder parameters at each transmission frame. These parameters are the LSF vectors, the fractional pitch lags, the innovative code vectors, and the two gains.
• the LSF vectors are converted to the LP filter coefficients and interpolated to obtain LP filters at each subframe.
• the decoder processing circuitry constructs the excitation signal by: 1 ) identifying the adaptive and innovative code vectors from the codebooks 515 and 519; 2) scaling the contributions by their respective gains at the block 521; 3) summing the scaled contributions; and 3) modifying and applying adaptive tilt compensation at the blocks 527 and 529.
• the speech signal is also reconstructed on a subframe basis by filtering the excitation through the LP synthesis at the block 531. Finally, the speech signal is passed through an adaptive post filter at the block 535 to generate the reproduced speech signal 539.
• the AMR encoder will produce the speech modeling information in a unique sequence and format, and the AMR decoder receives the same information in the same way.
• the different parameters of the encoded speech and their individual bits have unequal importance with respect to subjective quality Before being submitted to the channel encoding function the bits are rearranged in the sequence of importance.
• Down scaling and high-pass filte ⁇ ng are combined by dividing the coefficients of the numerator of H hl (z)by 2.
• Short-term prediction, or linear prediction (LP) analysis is performed twice per speech frame using the autocorrelation approach with 30 ms windows Specifically, two LP analyses are performed twice per frame using two different windows.
• LP_analys ⁇ s_l a hyb ⁇ d window is used which has its weight concentrated at the fourth subframe
• the hyb ⁇ d window consists of two parts. The first part is half a Hamming window, and the second part is a quarter of a cosine cycle.
• the window is given by
• a 60 Hz bandwidth expansion is used by lag windowing, the autocorrelations using the window:
• r(0) is multiplied by a white noise correction factor 1.0001 which is equivalent to
• LSFs Line Spectral Frequencies
• q ⁇ (n) is the interpolated LSF for subframe 3
• q A (n - 1) is
• q 4 (n) is the LSF for subframe 4 obtained from LP_analysis_l of current frame.
• the interpolation is carried out in the cosine domain.
• a VAD Voice Activity Detection algorithm is used to classify input speech frames into either active voice or inactive voice frame (background noise or silence) at a block 235 (Fig. 2).
• the input speech s(n) is used to obtain a weighted speech signal s H ( «) by passing s(n)
• the classification is based on four measures: 1) speech sharpness P1_SHP; 2) normalized one delay correlation P2_R1 ; 3) normalized zero-crossing rate P3_ZC; and 4) normalized LP residual energy P4_RE.
• MaxL Max is the maximum of abs(r w ( ⁇ )) the specified interval of length L .
• P3_ZC - ⁇ - [l sgn[j( ⁇ )] - sgn[5( ⁇ - l)] l],
• the retained maxima C k , i 1,2,3,4, are normalized by dividing by:
• a delay, &/, among the four candidates, is selected by maximizing the four normalized correlations.
• LTP_mode long-term prediction
• LTP_mode is set to 0 at all times.
• LTP_mode is set to 1 all of the time.
• the encoder decides whether to operate in the LTP or PP mode.
• the PP mode only one pitch lag is transmitted per coding frame.
• the decision algorithm is as follows. First, at the block 241 , a prediction of the pitch lag pit for the current frame is determined as follows:
• lagll is the previous frame open-loop pitch lag at the first half of the frame.
• TH MIN(lagl*0. ⁇ , 5 )
• TH MAX( 2.0, TH) .
• one integer lag k is selected maximizing the R k in the range k e[T op - 10, T op + 10] bounded by [17, 145]. Then, the precise pitch lag P m and the
• the obtained index l m will be sent to the decoder.
• the pitch lag contour, ⁇ c (n) is defined using both the current lag P m and the previous lag P m -/: if (
• One frame is divided into 3 subframes for the long-term preprocessing.
• the subframe size, L s is 53
• the subframe size for searching, L sr is 70
• L s is 54
• L sr is:
• T c (n) trunc ⁇ T c (n + m ⁇ L s ) ⁇
• T IC (n) ⁇ c (n)-T c (n)
• I s (i,T lc (n)) is a set of interpolation coefficients, and/; is 10. Then, the
• P sh2 is the sha ⁇ ness from the weighted speech signal:
• nO trunc ⁇ m0 + r ⁇ .. + 05 ⁇ (here, m is subframe number and ⁇ ⁇ cc is the previous
• ⁇ opt a normalized correlation vector between the original weighted speech signal and the modified matching target is defined as:
• a best local delay in the integer domain, k opt is selected by maximizing R / (k) in the range of k € [5 ⁇ 0.5P1] , which is corresponding to the real delay:
• R ⁇ (k) is inte ⁇ olated to obtain the fractional correlation vector, R/j), by:
• [l/i ) ⁇ is a set of inte ⁇ olation coefficients.
• the optimal fractional delay index, j op , is selected by maximizing R/j).
• the local delay is then adjusted by:
• T ⁇ w(n) ⁇ acc + n ⁇ ⁇ o P , I L s - T w (n) ,
• ⁇ I s (i, T lw (n)) ⁇ is a set of inte ⁇ olation coefficients.
• the LSFs Prior to quantization the LSFs are smoothed in order to improve the perceptual quality. In principle, no smoothing is applied during speech and segments with rapid variations in the spectral envelope. During non-speech with slow variations in the spectral envelope, smoothing is applied to reduce unwanted spectral variations. Unwanted spectral variations could typically occur due to the estimation of the LPC parameters and LSF quantization. As an example, in stationary noise-like signals with constant spectral envelope introducing even very small variations in the spectral envelope is picked up easily by the human ear and perceived as an annoying modulation.
• the smoothing of the LSFs is done as a running mean according to:
• ⁇ (n) controls the amount of smoothing, e.g. if ⁇ (n) is zero no smoothing is applied.
• ⁇ (n) is calculated from the VAD information (generated at the block 235) and two estimates of the evolution of the spectral envelope, the two estimates of the evolution are defined as:
• the parameter ⁇ (n) is controlled by the following logic:
• fc is the first reflection coefficient
• step 1 the encoder processing circuitry checks the VAD and the evolution of the spectral envelope, and performs a full or partial reset of the smoothing if required.
• step 2 the encoder processing circuitry updates the counter, N mode ⁇ (n) , and calculates the smoothing
• the parameter ⁇ (n) varies between 0.0 and 0.9, being 0.0 for speech, music, tonal-like signals, and non-stationary background noise and ramping up towards 0.9 when stationary background noise occurs.
• the LSFs are quantized once per 20 ms frame using a predictive multi-stage vector quantization. A minimal spacing of 50 Hz is ensured between each two neighboring LSFs before
• a vector of mean values is subtracted from the LSFs, and a vector of prediction error vector fe is calculated from the mean removed LSFs vector, using a full-matrix AR(2) predictor.
• a single predictor is used for the rates 5.8, 6.65, 8.0, and 11.0 kbps coders, and two sets of prediction coefficients are tested as possible predictors for the 4.55 kbps coder.
• the vector of prediction error is quantized using a multi-stage VQ, with multi-surviving candidates from each stage to the next stage.
• the two possible sets of prediction error vectors generated for the 4.55 kbps coder are considered as surviving candidates for the first stage.
• the first 4 stages have 64 entries each, and the fifth and last table have 16 entries.
• the first 3 stages are used for the 4.55 kbps coder, the first 4 stages are used for the 5.8, 6.65 and 8.0 kbps coders, and all 5 stages are used for the 11.0 kbps coder.
• the following table summarizes the number of bits used for the quantization of the LSFs for each rate.
• the quantization in each stage is done by minimizing the weighted distortion measure given by:
• fe represents in this equation both the initial prediction error to the first stage and the successive quantization error from each stage to the next one).
• the final choice of vectors from all of the surviving candidates (and for the 4.55 kbps coder - also the predictor) is done at the end, after the last stage is searched, by choosing a combined set of vectors (and predictor) which minimizes the total error.
• the contribution from all of the stages is summed to form the quantized prediction error vector, and the quantized prediction error is added to the prediction states and the mean LSFs value to generate the quantized LSFs vector.
• the quantized LSFs are ordered and spaced with a minimal spacing of 50 Hz.
• LTP_mode If the LTP_mode is 1 , a search of the best inte ⁇ olation path is performed in order to get the inte ⁇ olated LSF sets.
• the search is based on a weighted mean absolute difference between a reference LSF set r ⁇ (n) and the LSF set obtained from LP analysis_2 ⁇ (n) .
• Min(a,b) returns the smallest of a and b.
• H(z)W(z) A(z / ⁇ l )/[A(z)A(zl ⁇ 2 )] is computed each subframe.
• This impulse response is needed for the search of adaptive and fixed codebooks 257 and 261.
• the impulse response h(n) is computed by filtering the vector of coefficients of the filter A(z //, ) extended by zeros
• the target signal for the search of the adaptive codebook 257 is usually computed by subtracting the zero input response of the weighted synthesis filter H(z)W(z) from the weighted speech
• computing the target signal is the filte ⁇ ng of the LP residual signal r(n) through the
• the initial states of these filters are updated by filtering the difference between the LP residual and the excitation
• the LP residual is given by
• the residual signal r( ⁇ ) which is needed for finding the target vector is also used in the adaptive codebook search to extend the past excitation buffer This simplifies the adaptive codebook search procedure for delays less than the subframe size of 40 samples
• T ⁇ /n and T ⁇ c(n) are calculated by
• T c (n) trunc ⁇ c (n + m L _ SF) ⁇ ,
• T ⁇ c (n) ⁇ c (n) - T c (n) ,
• m is subframe number
• ⁇ I s (i,T lc (n)) ⁇ is a set of inte ⁇ olation coefficients
• / is 10
• MAX ⁇ G is
• Adaptive codebook searching is performed on a subframe basis. It consists of performing closed-loop pitch lag search, and then computing the adaptive code vector by inte ⁇ olating the past excitation at the selected fractional pitch lag.
• the LTP parameters (or the adaptive codebook parameters) are the pitch lag (or the delay) and gain of the pitch filter.
• the excitation is extended by the LP residual to simplify the closed-loop search.
• the pitch delay is encoded with 9 bits for the 1 st and 3 rd subframes and the relative delay of the other subframes is encoded with 6 bits.
• the close-loop pitch search is performed by minimizing the mean-square weighted error between the original and synthesized speech. This is achieved by maximizing the term:
• T gs (n) is the target signal and y k (n) is the past filtered
• y k (n) y k _ l (n - ⁇ ) + u(-)h(n),
• the samples u(n),n 0 to 39, are not available and are needed for pitch delays less than 40.
• the LP residual is copied to u(n) to make the relation in the calculations valid for all delays.
• the adaptive codebook vector, v(n) is
• the adaptive codebook gain, g p is
• codebook vector zero state response of H(z)W(z) to v(n) .
• the adaptive codebook gain could be modified again due to joint optimization of the gains, gain normalization and smoothing.
• y(n) is also referred to herein as C p (n) .
• pitch lag maximizing correlation might result in two or more times the correct one.
• the candidate of shorter pitch lag is favored by weighting the correlations of different candidates with constant weighting coefficients. At times this approach does not correct the double or treble pitch lag because the weighting coefficients are not aggressive enough or could result in halving the pitch lag due to the strong weighting coefficients.
• these weighting coefficients become adaptive by checking if the present candidate is in the neighborhood of the previous pitch lags (when the previous frames are voiced) and if the candidate of shorter lag is in the neighborhood of the value obtained by dividing the longer lag (which maximizes the correlation) with an integer.
• a speech classifier is used to direct the searching procedure of the fixed codebook (as indicated by the blocks 275 and 279) and to- control gain normalization (as indicated in the block 401 of Fig. 4).
• the speech classifier serves to improve the background noise performance for the lower rate coders, and to get a quick start- up of the noise level estimation.
• the speech classifier distinguishes stationary noise-like segments from segments of speech, music, tonal-like signals, non-stationary noise, etc.
• the speech classification is performed in two steps.
• An initial classification (speechjmode) is obtained based on the modified input signal.
• the final classification (excjmode) is obtained from the initial classification and the residual signal after the pitch contribution has been removed.
• the two outputs from the speech classification are the excitation mode, excjmode, and the parameter ⁇ sl ⁇ (n) , used to control the subframe based smoothing of the
• the speech classification is used to direct the encoder according to the characteristics of the input signal and need not be transmitted to the decoder.
• the encoder emphasizes the perceptually important features of the input signal on a subframe basis by adapting the encoding in response to such features. It is important to notice that misclassification will not result in disastrous speech quality degradations.
• the speech classifier identified within the block 279 (Fig. 2) is designed to be somewhat more aggressive for optimal perceptual quality.
• the initial classifier (speech_classifier) has adaptive thresholds and is performed in six steps:
• Njnode_sub(n) 4 endif if(Njnode_sub(n) > 0)
• A- o endif endif .
• the target signal, T g (n) is
• T gs (n) is the original target signal 253, YJn) is the filtered signal from the adaptive codebook, g p is the LTP gain for the selected adaptive codebook vector, and the gain factor is determined according to the normalized LTP gain, R p , and the bit rate:
• R p normalized LTP gain
• noise level + Another factor considered at the control block 275 in conducting the fixed codebook search and at the block 401 (Fig. 4) during gain normalization is the noise level + ")" which is given by:
• E s is the energy of the current input signal including background noise
• Eiller is a running average energy of the background noise.
• E réelle is updated only when the input signal is detected to be background noise as follows: if (first background noise frame is true)
• E n 0.75 £-. m + 0.25 E s ; where E réelle_ m is the last estimation of the background noise energy.
• a fast searching approach is used to choose a subcodebook and select the code word for the current subframe.
• the same searching routine is used for all the bit rate modes with different input parameters.
• the long-term enhancement filter, F p (z) is used to filter through the selected
• T is the integer part of
• the impulsive response h(n) includes the filter F p (z).
• Gaussian subcodebooks For the Gaussian subcodebooks, a special structure is used in order to bring down the storage requirement and the computational complexity. Furthermore, no pitch enhancement is applied to the Gaussian subcodebooks.
• All pulses have the amplitudes of +1 or -1. Each pulse has 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 bits to code the pulse position.
• the signs of some pulses are transmitted to the decoder with one bit coding one sign.
• the signs of other pulses are determined in a way related to the coded signs and their pulse positions.
• each pulse has 3 or 4 bits to code the pulse position.
• TRACK(0,i) ⁇ ⁇ 0, 4, 8, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36 ⁇
• TRACK(l,i) ⁇ ⁇ 0, 6, 12, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34 ⁇ .
• the initial phase of each pulse is fixed as:
• PHAS(n p ,0) modulus(n p I MAXPHAS)
• PHAS(n p , ⁇ ) PHAS(N p - 1 - n p , 0)
• MAXPHAS is the maximum phase value
• At least the first sign for the first pulse, SlGN(n p ), n p 0, is encoded because the gain sign is embedded.
• One subframe with the size of 40 samples is divided into 10 small segments with the length of 4 samples.
• 10 pulses are respectively located into 10 segments. Since the position of each pulse is limited into one segment, the possible locations for the pulse numbered with n p are, (4n p j, (4n p , 4n p +2], or (4n p , 4n p +l, 4n p +2, 4n p +3 ⁇ , respectively for 0, 1, or 2 bits to code the pulse position. All the signs for all the 10 pulses are encoded.
• the fixed codebook 261 is searched by minimizing the mean square error between the weighted input speech and the weighted synthesized speech.
• H is a the lower triangular Toepliz convolution matrix with diagonal ⁇ ( ⁇ ) and lower
• the energy in the denominator is given by:
• the pulse signs are preset by using the signal b( n ) , which is a weighted sum of the normalized d(n) vector and the normalized target signal of x 2 (n) in the residual domain res 2 (n):
• the encoder processing circuitry corrects each pulse position sequentially from the first pulse to the last pulse by checking the c ⁇ te ⁇ on value A k contributed from all the pulses for all possible locations of the current pulse
• the functionality of the second searching turn is repeated a final time.
• further turns may be utilized if the added complexity is not prohibitive
• one of the subcodebooks in the fixed codebook 261 is chosen after finishing the first searching turn Further searching turns are done only with the chosen subcodebook.
• one of the subcodebooks might be chosen only after the second searching turn or thereafter should processing resources so permit
• the Gaussian codebook is structured to reduce the storage requirement and the computational complexity.
• a comb-structure with two basis vectors is used In the comb- structure, the basis vectors are orthogonal, facilitating a low complexity search.
• the first basis vector occupies the even sample positions, (0,2 38)
• the second basis vector occupies the odd sample positions, (1,3,... , 39) .
• the same codebook is used for both basis vectors, and the length of the codebook vectors is 20 samples (half the subframe size).
• basis vector 22 populates the co ⁇ esponding part of a code vector, c ldx , in the following way:
• each entry in the Gaussian table can produce as many as 20 unique vectors, all with the same energy due to the circular shift.
• the 10 entries are all normalized to have identical energy of 0.5, i.e.,
• the search of the Gaussian codebook utilizes the structure of the codebook to facilitate a low complexity search. Initially, the candidates for the two basis vectors are searched independently based on the ideal excitation, res 2 . For each basis vector, the two best candidates,
• idxt max ⁇ res 2 (2 i + ⁇ ) - c k (2 - i + ⁇ )
• N Gauss is the number of candidate entries for the basis vector.
• the total number of entries in the Gaussian codebook is 2 • 2 ⁇ N Gauss " .
• c ⁇ _ k is the Gaussian code vector from the candidate vectors represented by the
• d H'x 2 is the correlation between the target signal x 2 (n) and the
• two subcodebooks are included (or utilized) in the fixed codebook 261 with 31 bits in the 1 1 kbps encoding mode.
• the innovation vector contains 8 pulses. Each pulse has 3 bits to code the pulse position. The signs of 6 pulses are transmitted to the decoder with 6 bits.
• the second subcodebook contains innovation vectors comprising 10 pulses. Two bits for each pulse are assigned to code the pulse position which is limited in one of the 10 segments. Ten bits are spent for 10 signs of the 10 pulses.
• Subcodebook.2: 10 pulses X 2 bits/pulse + 10 signs 30 bits
• P N SR is the background noise to speech signal ratio (i.e., the "noise level” in the block 279)
• R p is the normalized LTP gain
• P sharp is the sha ⁇ ness parameter of the ideal excitation res (n) (i.e., the "sha ⁇ ness” in the block 279).
• the innovation vector contains 4 pulses. Each pulse has 4 bits to code the pulse position. The signs of 3 pulses are transmitted to the decoder with 3 bits.
• the second subcodebook contains innovation vectors having 10 pulses. One bit for each of 9 pulses is assigned to code the pulse position which is limited in one of the 10 segments. Ten bits are spent for 10 signs of the 10 pulses.
• the bit allocation for the subcodebook can be summarized as the following:
• One of the two subcodebooks is chosen by favoring the second subcodebook using adaptive weighting applied when comparing the criterion value Fl from the first subcodebook to the criterion value F2 from the second subcodebook as in the 1 1 kbps mode.
• the weighting
• the 6.65kbps mode operates using the long-term preprocessing (PP) or the traditional
• a pulse subcodebook of 18 bits is used when in the PP-mode.
• a total of 13 bits are allocated for three subcodebooks when operating in the LTP-mode.
• the bit allocation for the subcodebooks can be summarized as follows:
• One of the 3 subcodebooks is chosen by favoring the Gaussian subcodebook when searching with LTP-mode.
• Adaptive weighting is applied when comparing the criterion value from the two pulse subcodebooks to the criterion value from the Gaussian subcodebook. The weighting,
• the 5.8 kbps encoding mode works only with the long-term preprocessing (PP).
• Total 14 bits are allocated for three subcodebooks.
• the bit allocation for the subcodebooks can be summarized as the following:
• One of the 3 subcodebooks is chosen favoring the Gaussian subcodebook with aaptive weighting applied when comparing the criterion value from the two pulse subcodebooks to the criterion value from the Gaussian subcodebook.
• the 4.55 kbps bit rate mode works only with the long-term preprocessing (PP). Total 10 bits are allocated for three subcodebooks.
• the bit allocation for the subcodebooks can be summarized as the following:
• One of the 3 subcodebooks is chosen by favoring the Gaussian subcodebook with weighting applied when comparing the criterion value from the two pulse subcodebooks to the criterion value from the Gaussian subcodebook.
• a gain re-optimization procedure is performed to jointly optimize the adaptive and fixed codebook gains, g and g c ,
• the adaptive codebook gain, g remains the same as that
• the fixed codebook gain, g c is obtained as:
• Original CELP algorithm is based on the concept of analysis by synthesis (waveform matching). At low bit rate or when coding noisy speech, the waveform matching becomes difficult so that the gains are up-down, frequently resulting in unnatural sounds. To compensate for this problem, the gains obtained in the analysis by synthesis close-loop sometimes need to be modified or normalized.
• gam normalization approaches There are two basic gam normalization approaches. One is called open-loop approach which normalizes the energy of the synthesized excitation to the energy of the unquantized residual signal Another one is close-loop approach with which the normalization is done considering the perceptual weighting.
• the gam normalization factor is a linear combination of the one from the close-loop approach and the one from the open-loop approach; the weighting coefficients used for the combination are controlled according to the LPC gain.
• the decision to do the gam normalization is made if one of the following conditions is met (a) the bit rate is 8.0 or 6.65 kbps, and noise-like unvoiced speech is true; (b) the noise level P NSR I larger than 0.5; (c) the bit rate is 6.65 kbps, and the noise level P HSR is larger than 0.2; and (d) the bit rate is 5.8 or 4.45kbps.
• the residual energy, E res , and the target signal energy, E Tgs are defined respectively as:
• Ol_Eg ⁇ sl ⁇ Ol_Eg + ( ⁇ - ⁇ sub )E m if (first subframe is true)
• g p and g c are unquantized gains.
• the closed-loop gain normalization factor is:
• the adaptive codebook gain and the fixed codebook gain are vector quantized using 6 bits for rate 4.55 kbps and 7 bits for the other rates.
• the gain codebook search is done by minimizing the mean squared weighted error, Err , between the original and reconstructed speech signals:
• scalar quantization is performed to quantize both the adaptive codebook gain, g , using 4 bits and the fixed codebook gain, g c , using 5 bits each.
• the fixed codebook gain, g c is obtained by MA prediction of the energy of the scaled
• E(n) be the mean removed energy of the scaled fixed codebook excitation in (dB) at subframe n be given by: ⁇ 9 -_
• the predicted energy is given by:
• the predicted energy is used to compute a predicted fixed codebook gain g c (by
• a correction factor between the gain, g c , and the estimated one, g c is given by:
• the codebook search for 4.55, 5.8, 6.65 and 8.0 kbps encoding bit rates consists of two steps.
• a binary search of a single entry table representing the quantized prediction error is performed.
• the index Index _ 1 of the optimum entry that is closest to the unquantized prediction error in mean square e ⁇ or sense is used to limit the search of the two-dimensional VQ table representing the adaptive codebook gain and the prediction error.
• a fast search using few candidates around the entry pointed by Index _ 1 is performed. In fact, only about half of the VQ table entries are tested to lead to the optimum entry with Index _ 2 . Only Index _ 2 is transmitted.
• a full search of both scalar gain codebooks are used to quantize g p and g c .
• the search is performed by minimizing the e ⁇ or
• the state of the filters can be updated by filtering the signal r(n) - u(n) through the
• speech at the encoder, s(n) is computed by filtering the excitation signal through 1/ A(z) .
• the function of the decoder consists of decoding the transmitted parameters (dLP parameters, adaptive codebook vector and its gain, fixed codebook vector and its gain) and performing synthesis to obtain the reconstructed speech. The reconstructed speech is then postfiltered and upscaled.
• the decoding process is performed in the following order.
• the LP filter parameters are encoded.
• the received indices of LSF quantization are used to reconstruct the quantized LSF vector.
• Inte ⁇ olation is performed to obtain 4 inte ⁇ olated LSF vectors (co ⁇ esponding to 4 subframes).
• the inte ⁇ olated LSF vector is converted to LP filter coefficient domain, a k , which is used for synthesizing the reconstructed speech in the subframe.
• the received pitch index is used to inte ⁇ olate the pitch lag across the entire subframe. The following three steps are repeated for each subframe:
• the quantized fixed codebook gain, g c is obtained following these
• g ⁇ c ⁇ g c
• received adaptive codebook gain index is used to readily find the quantized adaptive gain. g from the quantization table
• the received fixed codebook gain index gives the fixed
• the received codebook indices are used to extract the type of the codebook (pulse or Gaussian) and either the amplitudes and positions of the excitation pulses or the bases and signs of the Gaussian excitation
• Adaptive gain control is used to compensate for the gain difference between the unemphasized excitation u(n) and emphasized excitation u (n) .
• the gain-scaled emphasized excitation u( ) is given by:
• u (n) ⁇ u(n) .
• the reconstructed speech is given by:
• Post-processing consists of two functions: adaptive postfiltering and signal up-scaling.
• the adaptive postfilter is the cascade of three filters: a formant postfilter and two tilt compensation filters.
• the postfilter is updated every subframe of 5 ms.
• the formant postfilter is given by:
• A(z) is the received quantized and inte ⁇ olated LP inverse filter and ⁇ n and ⁇ control the
• the first tilt compensation filter H rl (z) compensates for the tilt in the formant postfilter
• the postfiltering process is performed as follows. First, the synthesized speech s(n) is
• the signal r(n) is filtered
• Adaptive gain control is used to compensate for the gain difference between the synthesized speech signal J( «)and the postfiltered signal s f (n) .
• the present subframe is computed by:
• the gain-scaled postfiltered signal s (n) is given by:
• up-scaling consists of multiplying the postfiltered speech by a factor 2 to undo the down scaling by 2 which is applied to the input signal.
• Figs. 6 and 7 are drawings of an alternate embodiment of a 4 kbps speech codec that also illustrates various aspects of the present invention.
• Fig. 6 is a block diagram of a speech encoder 601 that is built in accordance with the present invention.
• the speech encoder 601 is based on the analysis-by-synthesis principle. To achieve toll quality at 4 kbps, the speech encoder 601 departs from the strict waveform-matching criterion of regular CELP coders and strives to catch the perceptual important features of the input signal.
• the speech encoder 601 operates on a frame size of 20 ms with three subframes (two of 6.625 ms and one of 6.75 ms). A look-ahead of 15 ms is used. The one-way coding delay of the codec adds up to 55 ms.
• the spectral envelope is represented by a 10 th order LPC analysis for each frame.
• the prediction coefficients are transformed to the Line Spectrum Frequencies (LSFs) for quantization.
• LSFs Line Spectrum Frequencies
• the input signal is modified to better fit the coding model without loss of quality. This processing is denoted "signal modification" as indicated by a block 621.
• signal modification In order to improve the quality of the reconstructed signal, perceptual important features are estimated and emphasized during encoding.
• the excitation signal for an LPC synthesis filter 625 is build from the two traditional components: 1) the pitch contribution; and 2) the innovation contribution.
• the pitch contribution is provided through use of an adaptive codebook 627.
• An innovation codebook 629 has several subcodebooks in order to provide robustness against a wide range of input signals. To each of the two contributions a gain is applied which, multiplied with their respective codebook vectors and summed, provide the excitation signal.
• the LSFs and pitch lag are coded on a frame basis, and the remaining parameters (the innovation codebook index, the pitch gain, and the innovation codebook gain) are coded for every subframe.
• the LSF vector is coded using predictive vector quantization.
• the pitch lag has an integer part and a fractional part constituting the pitch period.
• the quantized pitch period has a non-uniform resolution with higher density of quantized values at lower delays.
• the bit allocation for the parameters is shown in the following table.
• the indices are multiplexed to form the 80 bits for the serial bit-stream.
• Fig. 7 is a block diagram of a decoder 701 with co ⁇ esponding functionality to that of the encoder of Fig. 6.
• the decoder 701 receives the 80 bits on a frame basis from a demultiplexer 71 1. Upon receipt of the bits, the decoder 701 checks the sync- word for a bad frame indication, and decides whether the entire 80 bits should be disregarded and frame erasure concealment applied. If the frame is not declared a frame erasure, the 80 bits are mapped to the parameter indices of the codec, and the parameters are decoded from the indices using the inverse quantization schemes of the encoder of Fig. 6.
• the excitation signal is reconstructed via a block 715.
• the output signal is synthesized by passing the reconstructed excitation signal through an LPC synthesis filter 721.
• LPC synthesis filter 721 To enhance the perceptual quality of the reconstructed signal both short-term and long-term postprocessing are applied at a block 731.
• the LSFs and pitch lag are quantized with 21 and 8 bits per 20 ms, respectively. Although the three subframes are of different size the remaining bits are allocated evenly among them. Thus, the innovation vector is quantized with 13 bits per subframe. This adds up to a total of 80 bits per 20 ms, equivalent to 4 kbps.
• the estimated complexity numbers for the proposed 4 kbps codec are listed in the following table. All numbers are under the assumption that the codec is implemented on commercially available 16-bit fixed point DSPs in full duplex mode. All storage numbers are under the assumption of 16-bit words, and the complexity estimates are based on the floating point C-source code of the codec.
• the decoder 701 comprises decode processing circuitry that generally operates pursuant to software control.
• the encoder 601 (Fig. 6) comprises encoder processing circuitry also operating pursuant to software control.
• Such processing circuitry may coexists, at least in part, within a single processing unit such as a single DSP.
• Fig. 8 is a diagram illustrating a codebook built in accordance with the present invention in which each entry therein is used to generate a plurality of codevectors.
• a first codebook 811 comprises a table of codevectors V o 813 through V 817, that is, codevectors V 0 , Vi, ... , V L - I , V L .
• a given codevector C ⁇ ( ) contains pulse definitions Co, Ci, C 2 , C 3 ... , C N - I , CN-
• each of the codevector entries in the codebook 811 are selected to have a normalized energy level of one, to simplify search processing.
• Each of the codevector entries in the codebook 811 are used to generate a plurality of excitation vectors. With N-1 shifts as illustrated by the bit positions 821, 823, 825 and 829, each codebook entry can generate N-1 different excitation vectors, each having the normalized energy of one.
• an initial shift of one each for each of the elements (pulse definitions) of the codevector entry generates an additional excitation vector 823.
• a further one bit shift generates codevector 825.
• the (N-l) th codevector 829 is generated, that is, the last unique excitation vector before an additional bit shift returns the bits to the position of the initial excitation vector 821.
• Fig. 9 is an illustration of an alternate embodiment of the present invention demonstrating that the shifting step may be more than one.
• codebook 911 comprises a table of codevectors V 0 913 through V 917, that is codevectors V 0 , V ... , V L - ⁇ , V L , therein the codevector C ⁇ (N> contains bits Co, Ci, C 2 , C 3 , ... , C N - ⁇ , C N ..
• an additional codevector 925 is generated by shifting the codevector elements (i.e., pulse definitions) by two at a time. Further shifting of the codevector bits generates additional codevectors until the (N-2) th codevector 927 is generated. Additional codevectors can be generated by shifting the initially specified codevector by any number of bits, theoretically from one to N-1 bits.
• Figure 10 is an illustration of an alternate embodiment of the present invention demonstrating a pseudo-random population from a single codevector entry to generate a pluraliyt of codevectors therefrom.
• a pseudo-random population of a plurality of new codevectors may be generated from each single codebook entry.
• a seed value for the population can be shared by both the encoder and decoder, and possibly used as a mechanism for at least low level encryption.
• Appendix A provides a list of many of the definitions, symbols and abbreviations used in this application.
• Appendices B and C respectively provide source and channel bit ordering information at various encoding bit rates used in one embodiment of the present invention.
• Appendices A, B and C comprise part of the detailed description of the present application, and, otherwise, are hereby inco ⁇ orated herein by reference in its entirety.
• adaptive codebook contains excitation vectors that are adapted for every subframe.
• the adaptive codebook is derived from the long term filter state.
• the pitch lag value can be viewed as an index into the adaptive codebook.
• adaptive postfilter The adaptive postfilter is applied to the output of the short term synthesis filter to enhance the perceptual quality of the reconstructed speech.
• AMR adaptive multi-rate codec
• the adaptive postfilter is a cascade of two filters: a formant postfilter and a tilt compensation filter.
• the adaptive multi-rate code is a speech and channel codec capable of operating at gross bit-rates of 11.4 kbps ("half-rate") and 22.8 kbs ("full-rate").
• the codec may operate at various combinations of speech and channel coding (codec mode) bit-rates for each channel mode.
• AMR handover Handover between the full rate and half rate channel modes to optimize AMR operation.
• channel mode Half-rate (HR) or full-rate (FR) operation.
• channel mode adaptation The control and selection of the (FR or HR) channel mode.
• channel repacking Repacking of HR (and FR) radio channels of a given radio cell to achieve higher capacity within the cell.
• closed-loop pitch analysis This is the adaptive codebook search, i.e., a process of estimating the pitch (lag) value from the weighted input speech and the long term filter state. In the closed-loop search, the lag is searched using error minimization loop (analysis-by-synthesis). In the adaptive multi rate codec, closed-loop pitch search is performed for every subframe.
• codec mode For a given channel mode, the bit partitioning between the speech and channel codecs. codec mode adaptation: The control and selection of the codec mode bit-rates. Normally, implies no change to the channel mode.
• direct form coefficients One of the formats for storing the short term filter parameters. In the adaptive multi rate codec, all filters used to modify speech samples use direct form coefficients.
• fixed codebook The fixed codebook contains excitation vectors for speech synthesis filters. The contents of the codebook are non-adaptive (i.e., fixed). In the adaptive multi rate codec, the fixed codebook for a specific rate is implemented using a multi-function codebook. fractional lags: A set of lag values having sub-sample resolution.
• full-rate Full-rate channel or channel mode.
• frame A time interval equal to 20 ms (160 samples at an 8 kHz sampling rate).
• gross bit-rate The bit-rate of the channel mode selected (22.8 kbps or 1 1.4 kbps).
• half-rate HR: Half-rate channel or channel mode.
• in-band signaling Signaling for DTX, Link Control, Channel and codec mode modification, etc. carried within the traffic.
• integer lags A set of lag values having whole sample resolution.
• inte ⁇ olating filter An FIR filter used to produce an estimate of sub-sample resolution samples, given an input sampled with integer sample resolution.
• inverse filter This filter removes the short term correlation from the speech signal.
• the filter models an inverse frequency response of the vocal tract.
• lag The long term filter delay. This is typically the true pitch period, or its multiple or sub-multiple.
• Line Spectral Frequencies (see Line Spectral Pair)
• Line Spectral Pair Transformation of LPC parameters.
• Line Spectral Pairs are obtained by decomposing the inverse filter transfer function A(z) to a set of two transfer functions, one having even symmetry and the other having odd symmetry.
• the Line Spectral Pairs (also called as Line Spectral Frequencies) are the roots of these polynomials on the z-unit circle).
• LP analysis window For each frame, the short term filter coefficients are computed using the high pass filtered speech samples within the analysis window. In the adaptive multi rate codec, the length of the analysis window is always 240 samples.
• LP coefficients Linear Prediction (LP) coefficients (also refe ⁇ ed as Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) coefficients) is a generic descriptive term for describing the short term filter coefficients.
• LPC Linear Predictive Coding
• LTP Mode Codec works with traditional LTP.
• mode When used alone, refers to the source codec mode, i.e., to one of the source codecs employed in the AMR codec. (See also codec mode and channel mode.)
• multi-function codebook A fixed codebook consisting of several subcodebooks constructed with different kinds of pulse innovation vector structures and noise innovation vectors, where codeword from the codebook is used to synthesize the excitation vectors.
• open-loop pitch search A process of estimating the near optimal pitch lag directly from the weighted input speech. This is done to simplify the pitch analysis and confine the closed-loop pitch search to a small number of lags around the open-loop estimated lags. In the adaptive multi rate codec, open-loop pitch search is performed once per frame for PP mode and twice per frame for LTP mode.
• out-of-band signaling Signaling on the GSM control channels to support link control.
• PP Mode Codec works with pitch preprocessing.
• residual The output signal resulting from an inverse filtering operation.
• short term synthesis filter This filter introduces, into the excitation signal, short term correlation which models the impulse response of the vocal tract.
• perceptual weighting filter This filter is employed in the analysis-by-synthesis search of the codebooks. The filter exploits the noise masking properties of the formants (vocal tract resonances) by weighting the e ⁇ or less in regions near the formant frequencies and more in regions away from them.
• subframe A time interval equal to 5-10 ms (40-80 samples at an 8 kHz sampling rate).
• vector quantization A method of grouping several parameters into a vector and quantizing them simultaneously.
• zero input response The output of a filter due to past inputs, i.e. due to the present state of the filter, given that an input of zeros is applied.
• zero state response The output of a filter due to the present input, given that no past inputs have been applied, i.e., given the state information in the filter is all zeroes.
• Hf(z) The formant postfilter A(z l f d )
• the filtered fixed codebook vector y k (n) The past filtered excitation u(n)
• the excitation signal u(n) The fully quantized excitation signal

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