A Robust Pitch Estimation Algorithm in Noise

Abstract

In this paper, we present a robust pitch estimation algorithm for noise-degraded speech. We propose a new circular average magnitude sum function (CAMSF) and a pseudo normalized correlation function (PNCF) both of which exhibit the periodicity at the pitch period of voiced speech. Exploiting the fact that CAMSF produces a peak while PNCF shows a notch, an integrated time-domain function (ITDF) is developed to enhance the pitch-harmonic-notches in presence of noise. Moreover, a frequency-frame relative smoothed noisy spectrum that acts as a harmonic spectral structure enhancer is utilized to accurately acquire a pitch-harmonic (PH) from noisy speech. We argued that employing the PH, pitch information can be effectively extracted through a variable-period impulse-train in conjunction with the proposed ITDF. It has been ascertained that the overall algorithm simulated using the Keele reference database is able to outperform some of the existing methods and well suited for a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) upto-10 dB.