VOICE ACTIVITY DETECTION AND PITCH ESTIMATION

摘要

Implementations include systems, methods and/or devices operable to detect voice activity in an audible signal by detecting glottal pulses. The dominant frequency of a series of glottal pulses is perceived as the intonation pattern or melody of natural speech, which is also referred to as the pitch. However, as noted above, spoken communication typically occurs in the presence of noise and/or other interference. In turn, the undulation of voiced speech is masked in some portions of the frequency spectrum associated with human speech by the noise and/or other interference. In some implementations, detection of voice activity is facilitated by dividing the frequency spectrum associated with human speech into multiple sub-bands in order to identify glottal pulses that dominate the noise and/or other inference in particular sub-bands. Additionally and/or alternatively, in some implementations the analysis is furthered to provide a pitch estimate of the detected voice activity.