A Novel Approach for Blind Estimation of Reverberation Time using Rayleigh Distribution Model

In this paper a blind estimation approach is proposed which directly utilizes the reverberant signal for estimating the RT (Reverberation Time).For estimation a very well-known method is used; MLE (Maximum Likelihood Estimation). Distribution of the decay rate is the core of the proposed method and can be achieved from the analysis of decay curve of the energy of the sound or from enclosure impulse response. In a pre-existing state of the art method Laplace distribution is used to model reverberation decay. The method proposed in this paper make use of the Rayleigh distribution and a spotting approach for modelling decay rate and identifying region of free decay in reverberant signal respectively. Motivation for the paper was deduced from the fact, when the reverberant speech RT falls in specific range then the signals decay rate impersonate Rayleigh distribution. On the basis of results of the experiments carried out for numerous reverberant signal it is clear that the performance and accuracy of the proposed method is better than other pre-existing methods.