Speech Enhancement Algorithm to Reduce the Effect of Background Noise in Mobile Phones

In mobile phones, perceived quality of speech signal deteriorates significantly in the presence ofbackground noise since near-end/surrounding noise also arrives at the near-end listener’s ears. Thequality of the received signal varies widely depending upon signal strength and unavoidable backgroundnoise in the user environment. There is a need to improve the quality of received speech signal in noisyconditions by developing the speech enhancement algorithms. This paper focuses on the impact of thevarious background noises on signal degradation and mechanisms to mitigate the noise impact forimproved speech signal perception. Gain adjustment process with simple time domain and frequencydomain approach using psychoacoustic has been adapted to improve the quality and intelligibility of thespeech signal in the noisy environments by automatically enhancing the speech signals when the noisedominates. Time domain approach is less complex and frequency domain using psychoacoustic is moreefficient in overcoming the degradation of speech signals in presence of near-end or background noise.