Using vocoded parameters in a staggered average to provide speakerphone operation based on enhanced speech activity thresholds

摘要

A portable communication device (104), such as a cellular telephone, is operable in a speakerphone mode. The communication device uses a digital communication scheme, and both receives and generates vocoded signals. The speakerphone provides half duplex operation to eliminate echo. When voice activity is detected, the device activates a speaker and mutes a microphone to avoid echo. When no voice activity is detected in the received signal, the speaker is muted and the microphone activated. To determine when speech activity is present in the received signal, a novel voice activity detection (VAD) algorithm is used which takes advantage of parameters provided as part of the received vocoded signal. The new voice activity algorithm includes calculating a staggered average of the frame energy value for a sequence of received frames, and determining if the staggered average value exceeds a threshold. The algorithm also includes adjusting the threshold level by basing the threshold level on the voicing value of the present vocoded frame.