Statistical model-based voice activity detection using support vector machine

From an investigation of a statistical model-based voice activity detection (VAD), it is discovered that a simple heuristic way like a geometric mean has been adopted for a decision rule based on the likelihood ratio (LR) test. For a successful VAD operation, the authors first review the behaviour mechanism of support vector machine (SVM) and then propose a novel technique, which employs the decision function of SVM using the LRs, while the conventional techniques perform VAD comparing the geometric mean of the LRs with a given threshold value. The proposed SVM-based VAD is compared to the conventional statistical model-based scheme, and shows better performances in various noise environments.