ESTIMATING THE PITCH OF A SPEECH SIGNAL USING A BINARY SIGNAL

摘要

A method of estimating the pitch of a speech signal (2) comprises the steps of sampling the speech signal to obtain a series of samples, dividing the series of samples into segments, each segment having a fixed number of consecutive samples, calculating for each segment a conformity function, and detecting peaks in the conformity function. The method further comprises the steps of providing an intermediate signal derived from the speech signal, converting the intermediate signal to a binary signal, which is set to logical "1" where the intermediate signal exceeds a pre-selected threshold and to logical "0" where the intermediate signal does not exceed the pre-selected threshold, calculating the autocorrelation of the binary signal, and using the distance between peaks in the autocorrelation of the binary signal as an estimate of the pitch. The large amount of operations needed in prior art algorithms is thus avoided. A similar device is also provided.