A model for efficient formant estimation

This paper presents a new method for estimating formant frequencies. The formant model is based on a digital resonator. Each resonator represents a segment of the short-time power spectrum. The complete spectrum is modeled by a set of digital resonators connected in parallel. An algorithm based on dynamic programming produces both the model parameters and segment boundaries that optimally match the spectrum. The main results of this paper are: (1) modeling formants by digital resonators allows a reliable estimation of formant frequencies; (2) digital resonators can be used efficiently in connection with dynamic programming; and (3) a recognition test with formant frequencies results in a string error rate of 4.8% on the adult corpus of the TI digit string database.