Minicomputer controlled fast expansion of speech signals for improving intelligibility

A new system for speech enhancement named "fast expansion,” has been designed, developed and demonstrated. It removes reverberating tails and low amplitude noise from speech. The system developed has two channels under minicomputer control and can be expanded to more channels. The minicomputer allows great flexibility, and threshold level can be adjusted independently for each channel. The completed system gives the expected results, and this hopefully will open a new venue for research in speech enhancement.