Enhancement of Electrolarynx speech based on WaveRNN
Eturo Urabe, Rin Hirakawa, Hideki Kawano, Kenichi Nakashi, Yoshihisa Nakatoh · 2019
In Japan, there are about 30,000 people whose larynxes have been removed. These people are not able to make voice, so they have problems in communication. For example, they cannot communicate their will enough with communication by writing or gestures alone, thereby avoiding communication. However, they can move the mouth and tongue normally. Therefore, they speak using alternative vocalizations. Electrical artificial larynx (EL) is one of the alternative vocalizations. When the vibrator is pressed against the lower part of the jaw, the vibration sound is transmitted in the sound path. This speech method is easy to learn and is cleaner than other speech methods, but this voice sound is bad quality because it has no intonation and it is noisy.