Automatic epoch extraction for closed-phase analysis of speech

This paper presents an automatic method to determine the instants of glottal closure (GCIs), or epochs, from the speech signal alone without the need of a laryngograph signal. The proposed algorithm incorporate a new technique for estimating GCI candidates and dynamic programming to select the best candidates according to predefined cost functions. Results show accuracy in estimation to within /spl plusmn/0.25ms on 87% of the test database and less that 1% false alarms and misses. Preliminary experiments using the telephone -degraded NTIMIT database have shown that the algorithm continues to perform well even in the presence of noise.