Design of an intelligent artificial larynx
Shizuo Hiki, Yuki Kakita · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1988
The artificial larynx proposed in this paper can control the following features automatically: (a) voicing onset/cessation, (b) a brief stop in vibration for voiceless consonants, (c) variation in fundamental frequency, and (d) intensity for prosodic information. This device consists of three parts: (1) a detector of biological signals, i.e., sound, electromyograms (surface), air pressure and airflow, tactile information on the skin surface surrounding the larynx, etc.; (2) the controller for sound source, in which control parameters are derived from the biological signals; and (3) a sound source, which is to be implanted in the neck. To investigate the basic characteristics of the timing factors, (a) and (b) mentioned above, a manual operation scheme was examined by employing specially designed switches. The timing control is to be replaced by the remaining functions of the speech muscles. Also, a result of the experiment on the control of prosodic information, (c) and (d) above, using airflow, is presented. [Work supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Japan.]