Reduction of Background Noise in Alaryngeal Speech using Spectral Subtraction with Quantile Based Noise Estimation

摘要

The transcervical electrolarynx or external electronic larynx is used by persons who cannot use their natural voice production mechanism. The device is a vibrator held against the neck tissue, and the vibrations generated move up the vocal tract to produce alaryngeal speech. Presence of background noise, due to leakage of the acoustic energy from the vibrator, degrades the resulting alaryngeal speech. This paper presents a single input technique for reducing the background noise in alaryngeal speech signal, using spectral subtraction in a pitch synchronous manner. Updating of the noise magnitude spectrum is carried out using quantile based noise estimation, which does not require speech/non-speech detection.