SBIR Phase I: Single-Channel Stationary/Non-Stationary Speech Extraction for Mobile Phones

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project by OmniSpeech LLC will address the need to have clear communications in noisy environments. Cellphone users want to make calls in noisy situations, and the inability to have clear communication in noise limits when and where phone calls can be made. Omnispeech is developing a completely software-based single-microphone solution which works in stationary and non-stationary noisy environments. It also has the potential to clean up the speech of the cellphone user when it is corrupted by the speech of another competing talker. During Phase I, Omnispeech will address the problem of distinguishing noisy unvoiced consonants from background noise. Another major focus will be optimizing the speech extraction algorithm so it can run in real-time on a DSP processor. Although, the proposed technology has immense potential for (1) Voice over IP, (2) 1st responder market, (3) assistive technologies for the hearing impaired, and (4) military/intelligence/homeland security, to begin with, Omnispeech will focus on the mobile industry. There were 1.1 billion mobile units worldwide in 2009 and global mobile phone sales for 2010 are anticipated to increase by 9%. Sales of smartphones in 2009 comprised 14% of overall mobile handset sales representing approximately 165 million units, a 24% increase from 2008. The number of new smartphone and web-enabled devices sold in 2013 is estimated to be 674 million units and that number is predicted to climb in subsequent years. OmniSpeech will target smartphones initially. In the following year, OmniSpeech will launch into feature phones. These two segments of the market, if properly addressed, will provide OmniSpeech a clear path to significant revenue which can be used to grow into the other application areas mentioned above.