Noise-robust blind reverberation time estimation using noise-aware time-frequency masking

TL;DR

This paper introduces a noise-aware two-stage method for blind reverberation time estimation from speech recordings, effectively distinguishing reverberation from noise to improve accuracy in noisy environments.

Contribution

It proposes a novel two-stage blind reverberation time estimation technique using noise-aware time-frequency masking, enhancing accuracy in noisy conditions.

Findings

Outperforms existing methods in noisy scenarios

Effective in real-world acoustic environments

Significantly improves reverberation time estimation accuracy

Abstract

The reverberation time is one of the most important parameters used to characterize the acoustic property of an enclosure. In real-world scenarios, it is much more convenient to estimate the reverberation time blindly from recorded speech compared to the traditional acoustic measurement techniques using professional measurement instruments. However, the recorded speech is often corrupted by noise, which has a detrimental effect on the estimation accuracy of the reverberation time. To address this issue, this paper proposes a two-stage blind reverberation time estimation method based on noise-aware time-frequency masking. This proposed method has a good ability to distinguish the reverberation tails from the noise, thus improving the estimation accuracy of reverberation time in noisy scenarios. The simulated and real-world acoustic experimental results show that the proposed method significantly outperforms other methods in challenging scenarios.