A new method of processing speech signals has been introduced which is applicable to a variety of speech processing including narrowband, mediumband and wideband coding. It modifies the speech signal such that the modified signal will have more desirable characteristics as seen by the intended processing algorithm. The modification is achieved by a point-by-point division (normalization) of the signal by an amplitude function, which is obtained from lowpass filtering the magnitude of the signal. Several examples of normalized signal are presented. Applications to pitch detection and speech coding have been described. We mention several areas for future research.

A new technique for estimating interframe displacement of small blocks with minimum mean square error is presented. An efficient algorithm for searching the direction of displacement has been described. The results of applying the technique to two sets of images are presented which show 8-10 dB improvement in interframe variance reduction due to motion compensation. The motion compensation is applied for analysis and design of a hybrid coding scheme and the results show a factor of two gain at low bit rates.