Affiliations: [a] Department of Computer Science & Engineering, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung City, Taiwan | [b] Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung City, Taiwan
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Shyh-Kuang Ueng, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung City, Taiwan. E-mail:[email protected]
Abstract:
BACKGROUND: Computerized acoustic voice measurement is essential
for the diagnosis of vocal pathologies. Previous studies showed that ambient
noises have significant influences on the accuracy of voice quality
assessment. OBJECTIVE: This paper presents a voice quality assessment system
that can accurately measure qualities of voice signals, even though the
input voice data are contaminated by low-frequency noises. METHODS: The ambient noises in our living rooms and laboratories
are collected and the frequencies of these noises are analyzed. Based on the
analysis, a filter is designed to reduce noise level of the input voice
signal. Then, improved numerical algorithms are employed to extract voice
parameters from the voice signal to reveal the health of the voice signal. RESULTS: Compared with MDVP and Praat, the proposed method
outperforms these two widely used programs in measuring fundamental
frequency and harmonic-to-noise ratio, and its performance is comparable to
these two famous programs in computing jitter and shimmer. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed voice quality assessment method is
resistant to low-frequency noises and it can measure human voice quality in
environments filled with noises from air-conditioners, ceiling fans and
cooling fans of computers.
Keywords: Human voice assessment, noise reduction, home-based medical caring system
