Method and system for speech detection and speech enhancement

A method of speech detection and speech enhancement in a speech detection and speech enhancement unit of Multipoint Conferencing Node (MCN), comprising:

• receiving input audio segments from at least one videoconferencing participant;
• determining an acoustic environment based on auxiliary information of the at least one videoconferencing participant, wherein determining an acoustic environment based on auxiliary information comprises:
• analyzing a video image to count a number of participants, and identifying a type of videoconferencing endpoint, wherein the acoustic environment is determined prior to processing the input audio segments;
• extracting Time-Frequency (T-F) domain features from the received input audio segments;
• determining if each of the received input audio segments is speech by inputting the T-F domain features into a speech detection classifier trained for the determined acoustic environment;
• determining, when one of the received input audio segments is speech, if the received audio segment is noisy speech by inputting the T-F domain features into a noise classifier using a statistical generative model representing the probability distributions of the T-F domain features of noisy speech trained for the determined acoustic environment;
• and
• applying a noise reduction mask on the received input audio segments according to the determination of the received audio segment is noisy speech, wherein applying a noise reduction mask comprises applying a composite noise reduction mask calculated as CM(τ,k)=αERM(τ,k)+βEBM(τ,k), where ERM is an estimated ratio mask, EBM is an estimated binary mask generated using a Bayesian classifier, and α and β are weights tuned for the determined acoustic environment,
• wherein the auxiliary information of the at least one videoconferencing participant comprises at least one of a number of participants in a video image received from the at least one videoconferencing participant, and a specification of a videoconferencing endpoint received from the at least one videoconferencing participant, and
• wherein the acoustic environment comprises meeting room with video conferencing endpoint, home office, and public space.