HMM Sub-band Based Speaker Identification Using Linear and Non-linear Merging Techniques

Speaker identification is a powerful, non-invasive and inexpensive biometric technique. The recognition accuracy however deteriorates when noise levels only affect a specific band of frequency. In this paper we present a sub-band based speaker identification that intends to improve the live-testing performance. Each frequency sub-band is processed and classified independently. We also compare the linear and non-linear merging techniques for the sub-bands recognizer. Support vector machines and Gaussian Mixture models are the non-linear merging techniques that are investigated. Results showed that the sub-band based method used with linear merging techniques enormously improved the performance of the speaker identification over the performance of wide-band recognizers when tested live. A live testing improvement of 9.78% was achieved.