Abstract:

Unvoiced/voiced classification of speech is a challenging problem especially under conditions of low signal-to-noise ratio or the non-white-stationary noise environment. To solve this problem, an algorithm for speech classification, and a technique for the estimation of pairwise magnitude frequency in voiced speech are proposed. By using third order spectrum of speech signal to remove noise, in this algorithm the least spectrum difference to get refined pitch and the max harmonic number is given. And this algorithm utilizes spectral envelope to estimate signal-to-noise ratio of speech harmonics. Speech classification, voicing probability, and harmonic parameters of the voiced frame can be obtained. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm, under complicated background noise, especially Gaussian noise, can effectively classify speech in high accuracy for voicing probability and the voiced parameters.

Key words:

unvoiced/voiced classification;harmonic extraction;the third-order cumulant;sinusoidal speech model