Home / Publications / E-library page
Only AES members and Institutional Journal Subscribers can download
Cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) are one of the two mandatory flight recording devices embarked in commercial aircraft. Its analysis is crucial to understand the context of an air incident or accident. However, in such scenarios, when the audio recordings are usable, CVR may contain strong mixtures of crew member speech signals, radio communications, and cockpit alarms. However, contrary to the “cocktail party problem” that blind source separation (BSS) aims to tackle, modeling CVR mixtures—that are here named the “cockpit party problem”—was never done before. In this paper, the authors thus propose a CVR mixture model and highlight its limitations. While not trivial—even in a two-source scenario—BSS methods can be applied to real CVR recordings. It is found that taking into account several BSS outputs provided by various methods may help audio analysts to transcribe the CVR data. That is, near 90% of unintelligible words can be transcribed from CVR recordings processed by BSS methods.
Author (s): Puigt, Matthieu; Bigot, Benjamin; Devulder, Hélène
Affiliation:
Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA), F-93350 Le Bourget, France; Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA), F-93350 Le Bourget, France; Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, LISIC – UR 4491, F-62228 Calais, France; Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, LISIC – UR 4491, F-62228 Calais, France
(See document for exact affiliation information.)
Publication Date:
2025-01-07
Import into BibTeX
Permalink: https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22792
(795KB)
Click to purchase paper as a non-member or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member Join the AES. If you need to check your member status, login to the Member Portal.
Puigt, Matthieu; Bigot, Benjamin; Devulder, Hélène; 2025; Introducing the "Cockpit Party Problem": Blind Source Separation Enhances Aircraft Cockpit Speech Transcription [PDF]; Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA), F-93350 Le Bourget, France; Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA), F-93350 Le Bourget, France; Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, LISIC – UR 4491, F-62228 Calais, France; Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, LISIC – UR 4491, F-62228 Calais, France; Paper ; Available from: https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22792
Puigt, Matthieu; Bigot, Benjamin; Devulder, Hélène; Introducing the "Cockpit Party Problem": Blind Source Separation Enhances Aircraft Cockpit Speech Transcription [PDF]; Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA), F-93350 Le Bourget, France; Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA), F-93350 Le Bourget, France; Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, LISIC – UR 4491, F-62228 Calais, France; Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, LISIC – UR 4491, F-62228 Calais, France; Paper ; 2025 Available: https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22792
@article{puigt2025introducing,
author={puigt matthieu and bigot benjamin and devulder hélène},
journal={journal of the audio engineering society},
title={introducing the "cockpit party problem": blind source separation enhances aircraft cockpit speech transcription},
year={2025},
volume={73},
issue={1/2},
pages={43-53},
month={february},}
TY – paper
TI – Introducing the "Cockpit Party Problem": Blind Source Separation Enhances Aircraft Cockpit Speech Transcription
SP – 43 EP – 53
AU – Puigt, Matthieu
AU – Bigot, Benjamin
AU – Devulder, Hélène
PY – 2025
JO – Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
VO – 73
IS – 1/2
Y1 – February 2025