Deep Neural Networks for Voice Activity Detection

In this paper, we propose a deep neural network (DNN) system for the automatic detection of speech in audio signals, otherwise known as voice activity detection (VAD). Several DNN types were investigated, including multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs), and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), with the best performance being obtained for the latter. Additional postprocessing techniques, i.e., hysteresis thresholds, minimum duration filtering, and bilateral extension, were employed in order to boost performance. The systems were trained and tested using several data subsets of the CENSREC-1-C database, with different simulated ambient noise conditions, and additional testing was done on a different CENSREC-1-C data subset containing actual ambient noise, as well as on a subset of the TIMIT database. An accuracy of up to 99.13% was obtained for the CENSREC-1-C datasets, and 97.60% for the TIMIT dataset.