FAST 3-LEVEL BINARY HIGHER-ORDER STATISTICS FOR SIMULTANEOUS VOICED UNVOICED AND PITCH DETECTION OF A SPEECH SIGNAL/

A new fast and robust 3-level binary higher order statistics (HOS) bas ed algorithm for simultaneous voiced/unvoiced detection and pitch esti mation of speech signals in coloured noise environments with low SNR i s presented. The use of the 3-level binary speech signals dramatically reduces the computational effort required in evaluating the higher or der cumulants. The superior performance of the new algorithm to the co nventional autocorrelation method using real speech signals is demonst rated. The algorithm can easily be implemented in digital hardware usi ng simple combinatorial logic. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.