Formant estimation for speech recognition

Author

Welling, Lutz ; Ney, Hermann

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Aachen Univ. of Technol., Germany

Volume

6

Issue

1

fYear

1998

fDate

1/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

36

Lastpage

48

Abstract

This paper presents a new method for estimating formant frequencies. The formant model is based on a digital resonator. Each resonator represents a segment of the short-time power spectrum. The complete spectrum is modeled by a set of digital resonators connected in parallel. An algorithm based on dynamic programming produces both the model parameters and the segment boundaries that optimally match the spectrum. We used this method in experimental tests that were carried out on the TI digit string data base. The main results of the experimental tests are: (1) the presented approach produces reliable estimates of formant frequencies across a wide range of sounds and speakers; and (2) the estimated formant frequencies were used in a number of variants for recognition. The best set-up resulted in a string error rate of 4.2% on the adult corpus of the TI digit string data base

Keywords

dynamic programming; frequency estimation; resonators; spectral analysis; speech processing; speech recognition; TI digit string data base; adult corpus; algorithm; digital resonators; dynamic programming; experimental tests; formant frequencies estimation; formant model; model parameters; segment boundaries; short-time power spectrum; sounds; speakers; speech recognition; string error rate; Acoustic testing; Context modeling; Dynamic programming; Error analysis; Frequency estimation; Heuristic algorithms; Linear predictive coding; Loudspeakers; Speech analysis; Speech recognition;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Speech and Audio Processing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1063-6676

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/89.650308

Filename

650308