A simple architecture for using multiple cues in sound separation

The article concerns a system aimed at enhancing a target talker under varying signal conditions based on the use of several different types of information or “cues”. Toward this end, an architecture designed to combine separately operating estimators is described and evaluated. The architecture is currently implemented using spatial and periodicity based enhancement algorithms, and evaluated using a male target talker and female jammer talker under several spatial and target to jammer ratio (TJR) conditions. Using a TJR estimation algorithm, the implementation is shown to yield improved TJR under all tested input TJRs (-4, 0, 4, and 8 dB) and spatial conditions (target and jammer straight ahead; target ahead and jammer at 60 degrees). Improvement ranges from 1.4 to 4.5 dB