Quantisation mechanisms in multi-protoype waveform coding

Prototype Waveform Coding is one of the most promising methods for speech coding at low bit rates over telecommunications networks. This thesis investigates quantisation mechanisms in Multi-Prototype Waveform (MPW) coding, and two prototype waveform quantisation algorithms for speech coding at bit rates of 2.4kb/s are proposed. Speech coders based on these algorithms have been found to be capable of producing coded speech with equivalent perceptual quality to that generated by the US 1016 Federal Standard CELP-4.8kb/s algorithm. The two proposed prototype waveform quantisation algorithms are based on Prototype Waveform Interpolation (PWI). The first algorithm is in an open loop architecture (Open Loop Quantisation). In this algorithm, the speech residual is represented as a series of prototype waveforms (PWs). The PWs are extracted in both voiced and unvoiced speech, time aligned and quantised and, at the receiver, the excitation is reconstructed by smooth interpolation between them. For low bit rate coding, the PW is decomposed into a slowly evolving waveform (SEW) and a rapidly evolving waveform (REW). The SEW is coded using vector quantisation on both magnitude and phase spectra. The SEW codebook search is based on the best matching of the SEW and the SEW codebook vector. The REW phase spectra is not quantised, but it is recovered using Gaussian noise. The REW magnitude spectra, on the other hand, can be either quantised with a certain update rate or only derived according to SEW behaviours

Glottal-synchronous speech processing

Glottal-synchronous speech processing is a field of speech science where the pseudoperiodicity of voiced speech is exploited. Traditionally, speech processing involves segmenting and processing short speech frames of predefined length; this may fail to exploit the inherent periodic structure of voiced speech which glottal-synchronous speech frames have the potential to harness. Glottal-synchronous frames are often derived from the glottal closure instants (GCIs) and glottal opening instants (GOIs). The SIGMA algorithm was developed for the detection of GCIs and GOIs from the Electroglottograph signal with a measured accuracy of up to 99.59%. For GCI and GOI detection from speech signals, the YAGA algorithm provides a measured accuracy of up to 99.84%. Multichannel speech-based approaches are shown to be more robust to reverberation than single-channel algorithms. The GCIs are applied to real-world applications including speech dereverberation, where SNR is improved by up to 5 dB, and to prosodic manipulation where the importance of voicing detection in glottal-synchronous algorithms is demonstrated by subjective testing. The GCIs are further exploited in a new area of data-driven speech modelling, providing new insights into speech production and a set of tools to aid deployment into real-world applications. The technique is shown to be applicable in areas of speech coding, identification and artificial bandwidth extension of telephone speec

New Directions in Subband Coding

Two very different subband coders are described. The first is a modified dynamic bit-allocation-subband coder (D-SBC) designed for variable rate coding situations and easily adaptable to noisy channel environments. It can operate at rates as low as 12 kb/s and still give good quality speech. The second coder is a 16-kb/s waveform coder, based on a combination of subband coding and vector quantization (VQ-SBC). The key feature of this coder is its short coding delay, which makes it suitable for real-time communication networks. The speech quality of both coders has been enhanced by adaptive postfiltering. The coders have been implemented on a single AT&T DSP32 signal processo

Weyl-Heisenberg Spaces for Robust Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

Design of Weyl-Heisenberg sets of waveforms for robust orthogonal frequency division multiplex- ing (OFDM) has been the subject of a considerable volume of work. In this paper, a complete parameterization of orthogonal Weyl-Heisenberg sets and their corresponding biorthogonal sets is given. Several examples of Weyl-Heisenberg sets designed using this parameterization are pre- sented, which in simulations show a high potential for enabling OFDM robust to frequency offset, timing mismatch, and narrow-band interference