A method and corresponding apparatus for coded-domain acoustic echo control is presented. An echo control problem is considered as that of perceptually matching an echo signal to a reference signal. A perceptual similarity function that is based on the coded spectral parameters produced by the speech codec is defined. Since codecs introduce a significant degree of non-linearity into the echo signal, the similarity function is designed to be robust against such effects. The similarity function is incorporated into a coded-domain echo control system that also includes spectrally-matched noise injection for replacing echo frames with comfort noise. Using actual echoes recorded over a commercial mobile network, it is shown herein that the similarity function is robust against both codec non-linearities and additive noise. Experimental results further show that the echo-control is effective at suppressing echoes compared to a Normalized Least Mean Squared (NLMS)-based echo cancellation system.
