A fuzzy mask based on wavelet packet for improving speech quality and intelligibility

In this letter, a novel fuzzy mask based on wavelet is introduced for improving speech quality and intelligibility. The proposed fuzzy mask is based on wavelet's soft and hard threshold limits to retain the time frequency (T-F) units of the enhanced spectrum. In contrast to prior methods, the proposed fuzzy mask approach eliminates the need of true speech spectrum to obtain a binary mask. Speech spectrum is degraded at signal-to-noise (SNR) levels (0, 5, and 10 dB) in babble, and pink, noise environments. Objective and subjective parameters MOS and PESQ indicated significant improvements over other related and binary mask methods.