The Clear 2006 Cmu Acoustic Environment Classification System

We describe the CLEAR 2006 acoustic environment classification evaluation and the CMU system used in the evaluation. Environment classification is a critical technology for the CHIL Connector service [1] in that Connector relies on maintaining awareness of user state to make intelligent decisions about the optimal times, places, and methods to deal with requests for human-to-human communication. Environment is an important aspect of user state with respect to this problem; humans may be more or less able to deal with voice or text communications depending on whether they are, for instance, in an office, a car, a cafe, or a cinema. We unfortunately cannot rely on the availability of the full CHIL sensor suite when users are not in the CHIL room; hence, we are motivated to explore the use of the only sensor which is reliably available on every mobile communication device: the microphone.