Voice activity detection for GSM adaptive multi-rate codec

This paper describes the VAD (voice activity detection) for controlling DTX (discontinuous transmission) of the GSM AMR (adaptive multi-rate) speech codec. The algorithm is based on spectral estimation and periodicity detection. The VAD contains a 9-band IIR filter bank, which divides input signals into frequency bands. The signal level at each band is calculated. Background noise is estimated in each sub-band. The VAD decision is computed by comparing input signal level and background noise estimate. The algorithm incorporates novel methods to estimate background noise and to detect periodic components based on open-loop pitch gain. A new method is also derived to detect correlated complex signals like music.