A method and apparatus for detecting the polarity of successive samples of voice signals and generating a pulse in response to a predetermined polarity sequence of successive samples occurring for a minimum duration of time. The sequence of polarity is either one positive sample followed by one negative sample for a minimum duration of 2 milliseconds or 16 samples of one sign followed by x samples of the opposite sign, wherein x may vary between 4 and 8, for a minimum duration of 3 milliseconds....

An audio squelch circuit uses spectral analysis of the audio signal to derive two test signals, one of the two indicating speech presence "energy" and the other "voiced" speech presence. The two test signals are logic-AND combined to decide speech presence and open the squelch gate. Detection of speech in the audio signal, composed of a voiced segment which is both preceded and followed by a non-voiced (consonant) segment, is improved by correspondingly lengthening the "voiced" test signal pulse...

A filter for reducing the effective keying passband of a VOX (voice operated relay) responsive to output signals comprising pulses which follow the peak frequency pattern of the audio input pulses includes a pair of retriggerable monostable multivibrators, a "D" type flip-flop circuit, and a NOR gate which produces positive output pulses used to trigger ON the voice operated transmitter only when the input signals occur within the specified passband.

A digital voice switch for detecting speech signals in the presence of noise on a communication channel. The voice switch employs a threshold adjustment circuitry and three threshold detectors which include a speech detector, a noise detector and a disabling detector. The speech detector having a variable speech threshold level detects the presence of speech signals in the communication channel. The noise detector having a variable noise threshold level detects the presence of noise. The thresho...

A speech detector uses a signal classifier (19) to identify portions of a representation of the average magnitude of a group of signal samples indicative of either speech or noise. A controller (33) in the signal classifier follows a four state sequence using appropriate time constants for signal measures in a variety of signal conditions in defining the speech and noise portions of the representation. A level estimator (21) uses selectively obtained signal measures from the defined portions of ...

A speech recognition system adaptable to noisy environments is disclosed. The system includes a recognition unit for recognizing input speech signals and a noise measuring unit for measuring the intensity of ambient noises. The system also includes a rejection unit responsive to a rejection standard controlled by the intensity of the measured noise for rejecting the rejection results given from the recognition unit when the rejection standard is exceeded.

An arrangement for controlling a telephone transmission line having an input linked to a sound detection device located in a noisy environment. The transmission line operates only for the transmission of words received by the sound detection device. The transmission line is made operative or inoperative according to whether sound energy variation collected by the sound detection device for duration of a predetermined time interval is superior or inferior to a predetermined approximate audio leve...

A speech activity detection circuit and method are described in which a digitized sample of the analog speech signal in a communications system is taken n times in a period of time t. The magnitude M of each sample is calculated and the largest value of M which is encountered over a given period t is stored as a peak magnitude M(t). This value is compared to a value M(t-1) which is the smallest value of M(t) from prior periods. The lesser of the two values is stored as the new value for M(t-1). ...

A voice operated switch employs digital signal processing techniques to examine audio signal frames having harmonic content to identify voiced phonemes and to determined whether the signal frame contains primarily speech or noise. The method and apparatus employ a multiple-stage, delayed-decision adaptive digital signal processing algorithm implemented through the use of commonly available electronic circuit components. Specifically the method and apparatus comprise a plurality of stages, includ...

Speech presence is detected by first comparing input signal absolute value versus a first threshold which is proportional to input signal RMS noise power, accumulating the first comparison output signal, then comparing the accumulated signal versus a second threshold signal which is proportional to a hangover time signal. The first and second threshold signals are used to form up to six threshold values.