The DYPSA algorithm for estimation of glottal closure instants in voiced speech

Abstract

We present the DYPSA algorithm for automatic and reliable estimation of glottal closure instants (GCIs) in voiced speech. Reliable GCI estimation is essential for closed-phase speech analysis, from which can be derived features of the vocal tract and, separately, the voice source. It has been shown that such features can be used with significant advantages in applications such as speaker recognition. DYPSA is automatic and operates using the speech signal alone without the need for an EGG or Laryngograph signal. It incorporates a new technique for estimating GCI candidates and employs dynamic programming to select the most likely candidates according to a defined cost function. We review and evaluate three existing methods and compare our new algorithm to them. Results for DYPSA show GCI detection accuracy to within ±0.25ms on 87% of the test database and fewer than 1% false alarms and misses.