Speech Intelligibility Enhancement using Tunable Equalization Filter

Speech reproduction systems such as mobile handsets are often used in environments with moderate or high level of ambient noise where the intelligibility of the spoken words is degraded heavily. We propose a low-complexity system to increase the intelligibility of far-end clean speech signal to a listener who is located in such environment. An implementation of the proposed system on ARM9 RISC processor in a mobile handset is also reported here. Speech intelligibility index (SII) obtained from the enhanced speech and the subjective test results indicate that the proposed system provides a significant gain in speech intelligibility in environments with moderate or heavy ambient noise with the introduction of minimal processing artifacts.