Periodicity extraction for voiced sounds with multiple periodicity

A periodicity extraction method is introduced to analyze voiced sounds with a complex excitation behavior. Although general voiced sound has only one periodicity, some voiced sounds such as the pathological voice and the singing voice often have multiple periodicities. A method for estimating multiple periodicities from voiced sounds to deal with these kinds of voices is proposed in this article. At first, a definition of the multiple periodicity and its causes are explained, and then the principle of the proposed method is introduced. The proposed method was evaluated by using several artificial signals and pathological voices recorded in a real environment. The analysis results from the artificial signals indicated that the proposed method can extract multiple periodicities, and that of the pathological voices shows a similar tendency. These results suggest that the proposed method is effective at extracting the multiple periodicities.