Dynamic resource allocation for network echo cancellation

Network echo canceler chips are designed to handle several channels simultaneously. With the processing speeds now available, a single chip might handle several hundred channels. In current implementations, however, the adaptation algorithm is designed for a single channel, and the computations are replicated N_c times, where N_c is the number of channels. With such an implementation, the computational requirement is N_c times the peak load for a single channel. The number of computations required in each channel, however, varies widely over time. Therefore, a considerable reduction in computational load can be achieved by designing the system for the average load plus a margin to account for load variations. The reduction in complexity is achieved by exploiting three features: (a) the inherent pauses in conversations; (b) the sparseness of network echo paths; and (c) the fact that an adaptive filter does not need to be updated when the error signal is small. It is shown that, in principle, such a design can reduce the computational load by a very large factor - perhaps as large as thirty. It remains to be seen whether a customized hardware architecture can be implemented to take advantage fully of the proposed algorithm