Methods for Evaluation of Speech Enhancement Algorithms

Communication systems play the key role in contemporary combat operations. These systems, which can be either onboard or man-wearable, are working in very noisy environment. The noise coming from the vehicle itself and onboard combat systems is entering communication channel via microphones of personal headsets and handsets. Thanks to digital speech processing algorithms it is possible to suppress these annoying background signals. This can be done with speech enhancement algorithms. The target is to gain clear speech of high intelligibility and high quality. This paper presents the methods generally recommended for the evaluation of speech enhancement algorithms in terms of speech quality. Thanks to this knowledge, the best speech enhancement algorithm can be found in practice.