A Design of Low Power Electrolarynx with Glottal Modified Source

Abstract

The larynx is a flexible part in the respiratory tract, a source of vibration during verbal communications. An electrolarynx or artificial larynx is a common device adopted by the laryngectomee to restore the speech. The objective of this paper is to design a low power electrolarynx using modified glottal source and perform an objective and subjective analysis of the vowel quality. In the first part, an electrolarynx circuit is designed which can drive different types of input signals. In the second part, a driving source is designed by pre-filtering the effect of neck surface. The power consumption of the prototype is measured and compared with the conventional type of electrolarynx. The vowel qualities are compared with that of normal vowels produced by a volunteer. We have found out that the glottal modified wave can reduce the power supply requirement of the electrolarynx. Loudness, quality factor and position of the formants are used as measures of quality for vowels produced by the present approach and found to be better (or comparable) than the traditional electrolarynx. When compared to existing method, the electrolarynx with glottal modified wave is power efficient and has a potential in forming a wearable device. It also has better vowel quality than the one with the conventional driving signal.