U.S. Philips Corporation

Hendrikus Duifhuis

Leonardus F Willems

Robert J Sluyter

Method of and arrangement for the determination of the pitch of speech signals in a system of speech analysis, wherein sequences of significant peak positions of the amplitude spectrum of a speech signal are derived (13) from time segments of the speech signal by means of a discrete Fourier transform (12). In order to reduce the influence of noise signals and noise components, respectively, in the amplitude spectrum the significant peak positions are compared with different masks (15), which have apertures at harmonic distances of the associated fundamental tone. The mask which matches the sequence of significant peak positions best is selected (20). A probable value for the pitch is now computed with the harmonic numbers now known of the significant peak positions which are located in apertures of the selected mask. The mean square error between these significant peak positions and the corresponding harmonics of the finished tone can be used as a criterion (21).

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Eindhoven, Netherlands

Hendrikus Duifhuis