Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for speech analysis

US4817155A · kind A · utility

14Cited by
5References
21Claims
0Family size

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 20, 1987
Grant dateMar 28, 1989
Priority date
Expiry dateJan 20, 2007

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG10L15/00
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Speech analysis is performed by synchronizing, with the initiation of glottal pulses produced during the voicing of phonemes, a pitch-independent transform that performs analysis entirely within a pitch period. Analysis is made of the three most dominant formant frequencies of the sound sets involved in the enunciation of voiced phonemes. Peaks in the transform represent formant frequencies. Three peaks are selected from the transform identifying the frequencies with the first, second and third greatest amplitudes. Correlation of the waveform between successive pitch periods detects whether a sound is a vowel, a voiced sibilant, or unvoiced. Unvoiced sound sets are similarly analyzed but the analysis is synchronized with artificially generated synch pulses. The sound sets are analyzed to determine (1) whether the sound is a vowel, a voiced sibilant or an unvoiced sound; (2) the primary formant frequency, i.e. the one with the greatest amplitude; (3) the substantial presence of secondary and tertiary formant frequencies with the next two largest amplitudes, as well as their frequencies; (4) the frequency ratios of the primary to the secondary and the primary to the tertiary frequenc…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.