Speech enhancement for helicopter headsets with an integrated ANC-system for FPGA-platforms

Abstract

During flights, helicopter pilots are exposed to high noise levels caused by rotor, engine and wind. To protect the health of passengers and crew, noise-dampening headsets are used. Modern active noise control (ANC) headset can further reduce the noise exposure for humans in helicopters. Internal or external voice transmission in the helicopter must be adapted to the noisy environment and speech signals are therefore heavily amplified. To improve the quality of communication in helicopters speech and background noise in the transmitted audio signals should be separated. Subsequently the noise components of the signal are eliminated. One established method for this type of speech enhancement is spectral subtraction. In this study, audio files recorded with an artificial head during a helicopter flight are used to evaluate a speech enhancement system with additional ANC capabilities on a rapid prototyping platform. Since both spectral subtraction and the ANC algorithm are computationally intensive, an FPGA is used. The results show a significant enhancement in the quality of the speech signals, which thus lead to improved communication. Furthermore, the enhanced audio signals can be used for voice recognition algorithms.