Late pre-dereverberation for speech intelligibility enhancement in public address systems
Yosra Mzah, Maamar Ahfir, M. Jaïdane-Saïdane · 2016
In this paper, we deal with a specific speech pre-processing for intelligibility enhancement in reverberant large dimension public confined spaces such as railway stations and airports. This method is dedicated to public address systems used to broadcast vocal messages. The proposed late pre-dereverberation technique is inspired from room acoustics equalization approaches. It is based on the inversion of the late reverberation part of the impulse response known to be detrimental to speech intelligibility and characterized by a frequency response that is independent of the receiver position. A standard homomorphic inversion method for mixed phase impulse response is used. The performances of the proposed late pre-dereverberation, with regards to the receiver position, are assessed using a set of real impulse responses measured in different positions in Foggia railway station (Italy). Intelligibility related acoustical indicators as well as objective criteria are used to highlight the contribution of this method on speech intelligibility.