Method and apparatus for mitigating impact of nonlinear effects on the quality of audio echo cancellation

摘要

A method is provided for reducing the adverse impact of echo on audio quality in a two-communication system. The method includes two parts. The first part begins by detecting non-linear effects (e.g. clippings and audio glitches). If a non-linear effect is detected, the system temporarily disables adaptation of the adaptive filter. In this way, filter coefficients obtained before the non-linear effect happens will not be corrupted, so the AEC can quickly recover from the non-linear effects. The second part begins by monitoring a parameter reflecting signal quality (e.g., ERLE). If the signal quality parameter falls below a given value the system switches from a full-duplex mode of operation to a half-duplex mode of operation. In this way, when a non-linear effect that is undetectable or occurs repeatedly (e.g., speaker volume changes) and which can corrupt an acoustic echo canceller (AEC) for a relatively long period of time, the system switches from full-duplex operation to half-duplex operation. In half-duplex operation, communication can only happen in one direction at a time, and thus the echo path is broken, effectively eliminating echoes. When the non-linear effect is no longer present and the quality parameter rises to a normal level, communication returns to a full-duplex mode of operation and the AEC once again removes the echoes.