An adaptive playout algorithm with delay spike detection for real-time VoIP

As the Internet is a best-effort delivery network, audio packets may be delayed or lost en route to the receiver due to network congestion. To compensate for the variation in network delay, audio applications buffer received packets before playing them out. Basic algorithms adjust the packet playout time during periods of silence such that all packets within a talkspurt are equally delayed. Another approach is to scale individual voice packets using dynamic time-scale modification. In this work, an adaptive playout algorithm based on the normalized least mean square algorithm, is improved by introducing a spike-detection mode to rapidly adjust to delay spikes. Simulations on Internet traces show that the enhanced bi-modal playout algorithm improves performance by reducing both the average delay and the loss rate as compared to the original algorithm.