A novel method for pitch detection via instantaneous frequency estimation using polynomial chirplet transform

Speech processing and synthesis have been the interests of many researchers for the past few decades. One of the primary task in speech processing is the estimation of fundamental frequency of speech (also known as pitch). Speech is a non stationary signal whose frequency varies arbitrarily with time. Linear time frequency analysis tools such as short time fourier transform may not be convenient for estimation of pitch of speech. Polynomial chirplet transform models the frequency of speech signal by a higher order polynomial of time, which makes it suitable for analysis of speech to extract pitch. In this work, a novel algorithm is proposed for pitch detection in speech by estimating instantaneous frequency (IF) using polynomial chirplet transform. The proposed algorithm is applied on a part of TIMIT speech database to find the pitch of speech of different male and female persons.