An investigation of estimating pitch periods using a non-linear differential operator

Numerous techniques have been developed to estimate the pitch periods in speech signals. These techniques use a variety of methods in both the time and frequency domains to estimate the pitch periods. An investigation is made into a time domain algorithm which uses a non-linear differential operator developed by Teager (see B. Gold, J. Acoust. Soc. of America, vol.34, no.7, p.916-921, 1962, and vol.46, no.2, pt.2, p.442-448, 1969), called an energy operator, to estimate the pitch period of the speech data. When the energy operator is applied to a voiced speech signal, it produced a signal with enhanced glottal pulses. From this signal, the pitch period is estimated and the resulting pitch track is smoothed. All operations in this algorithm are done in the time domain