1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to adaptive filtering and, more specifically, to echo-suppression algorithms.
2. Description of the Related Art
This section introduces aspects that may help facilitate a better understanding of the invention(s). Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.
Echo cancellation is a process of removing echo from a communication signal. Echo can appear, e.g., due to the use of hybrids and/or speech compression techniques and due to packet processing delays. In voice communications, echo cancellation can advantageously improve call quality and reduce bandwidth requirements.
Echo cancellers use adaptive filters because the exact acoustic and/or network environment, in which the host communication device operates, is not known a priori. Filter adjustment is thus used to enable the host communication device to perform reasonably well in a variety of environments. There exist a large number of algorithms for adaptively adjusting filter parameters, which algorithms differ in dimensionality, computational complexity, convergence speed, stability, etc. In general, relatively complex algorithms provide relatively high quality of echo suppression, but impose a relatively heavy burden on the computational resources of the host communication device. On the other hand, the quality of echo suppression achieved through the use of relatively simple algorithms might not be optimal or even acceptable.