Apparatus and method of suppressing howling

An apparatus of suppressing howling, comprising:

• a microphone sensing a voice of a user to generate a voice signal;
• a memory storing a command for suppressing howling of the voice signal;
• and
• a processor suppressing the howling of the voice signal depending on the command,
• wherein the command includes a command allowing the following steps to be performed:
• calculating a long-section average and a short-section average of a current frame signal in the voice signal;
• setting any one of frequencies corresponding to peak powers of the current frame signal on a log-power spectrum as a howling candidate frequency;
• calculating a first ratio, which is a ratio between a power of the current frame signal for the howling candidate frequency and the short-section average, and a second ratio, which is a ratio between the long-section average and the short-section average;
• determining the howling candidate frequency to be a howling frequency of the current frame signal in the case in which the first ratio is larger than a first predetermined threshold value and the second ratio is larger than a second threshold value;
• and
• suppressing the howling of the voice signal depending on the howling frequency.