a b s t r a c tThis paper presents a new sign subband adaptive filter (SSAF) algorithm with an individual-weighting-factor (IWF) for each subband, instead of a common weighting factor in the original SSAF algorithm, called the IWF-SSAF. Each individual weighting factor only depends on the corresponding subband input signal power. Compared with the SSAF algorithm, the proposed approach fully utilizes the inherent decorrelating property of subband adaptive filter for colored inputs, leading to a better convergence performance. After that, to further enhance the performance of the IWF-SSAF in a sparse system, an improved proportionate IWF-SSAF (IWF-IPSSAF) algorithm is proposed. The proposed algorithms not only inherit the good robustness of sign algorithm against impulsive interferences, but also obtain a significant improvement in the performance as compared to their counterparts (i.e., SSAF and IPSSAF), in terms of the convergence rate and tracking capability. Besides, the IWF-IPSSAF algorithm has faster convergence rate than the IWF-SSAF algorithm for sparse impulse responses. Finally, the performances of two proposed algorithms are demonstrated in the system identification and the acoustic echo cancellation with double-talk.