Speech coding at 4800 bps for mobile satellite communications

A speech compression project has recently been completed to develop a speech coding algorithm suitable for operation in a mobile satellite environment aimed at providing telephone quality natural speech at 4.8 kbps. The work has resulted in two alternative techniques which achieve reasonably good communications quality at 4.8 kbps while tolerating vehicle noise and rather severe channel impairments. The algorithms are embodied in a compact self-contained prototype consisting of two AT and T 32-bit floating-point DSP32 digital signal processors (DSP). A Motorola 68HC11 microcomputer chip serves as the board controller and interface handler. On a wirewrapped card, the prototype's circuit footprint amounts to only 200 sq cm, and consumes about 9 watts of power.