A Comprehensive Noise Robust Speech Parameterization Algorithm Using Wavelet Packet Decomposition-Based Denoising and Speech Feature Representation Techniques

This paper concerns the problem of automatic speech recognition in noise-intense and adverse environments. The main goal of the proposed work is the definition, implementation, and evaluation of a novel noise robust speech signal parameterization algorithm. The proposed procedure is based on time-frequency speech signal representation using wavelet packet decomposition. A new modified soft thresholding algorithm based on time-frequency adaptive threshold determination was developed to efficiently reduce the level of additive noise in the input noisy speech signal. A two-stage Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-based classifier was developed to perform speech/nonspeech as well as voiced/unvoiced classification. The adaptive topology of the wavelet packet decomposition tree based on voiced/unvoiced detection was introduced to separately analyze voiced and unvoiced segments of the speech signal. The main feature vector consists of a combination of log-root compressed wavelet packet parameters, and autoregressive parameters. The final output feature vector is produced using a two-staged feature vector postprocessing procedure. In the experimental framework, the noisy speech databases Aurora 2 and Aurora 3 were applied together with corresponding standardized acoustical model training/testing procedures. The automatic speech recognition performance achieved using the proposed noise robust speech parameterization procedure was compared to the standardized mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC) feature extraction procedures ETSI ES 201 108 and ETSI ES 202 050.