A study of double-talk detection performance in the presence of acoustic echo path changes

A well-performing double-talk detection (DTD) algorithm is a vital part of an acoustic echo canceller. However, recent algorithms are typically evaluated using a static time-invariant room acoustic impulse response, omitting a proper treatment of the case when the acoustic echo path is changing. In this work, we introduce a common framework to objectively evaluate how path changes affect the DTD performance. Via extensive numerical simulations, we conclude that the main factor in acoustic path changes affecting the DTD performance, for some of the more common DTD algorithms, is variations in the damping of the echo path.