Variable step-size subband backward BSS algorithms for speech quality enhancement

•Four new algorithms are proposed in this paper for speech quality enhancement.•The new algorithms are based on a variable step-size subband approach.•These new algorithms allow improving both the convergence speed and the steady state values.•Objective criteria as SNR, CD and SM show the good performances of the new algorithms.•Subjective MOS test confirm the superiority of the new algorithms.

This paper addresses the problem of the speech quality improvement using adaptive filtering algorithms. Recently in Djendi and Bendoumia (2014) [1], we have proposed a new two-channel backward algorithm for noise reduction and speech intelligibility enhancement. The main drawback of proposed two-channel subband algorithm is its poor performance when the number of subband is high. This inconvenience is well seen in the steady state regime values. The source of this problem is the fixed step-sizes of the cross-adaptive filtering algorithms that distort the speech signal when they are selected high and degrade the convergence speed behaviours when they are selected small. In this paper, we propose four modifications of this algorithm which allow improving both the convergence speed and the steady state values even in very noisy condition and a high number of subbands. To confirm the good performance of the four proposed variable-step-size SBBSS algorithms, we have carried out several simulations in various noisy environments. In these simulations, we have evaluated objective and subjective criteria as the system mismatch, the cepstral distance, the output signal-to-noise-ratio, and the mean opinion score (MOS) method to compare the four proposed variables step-size versions of the SBBSS algorithm with their original versions and with the two-channel fullband backward (2CFB) least mean square algorithm.

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