A phonatory system simulator for testing purposes of voice-monitoring contact sensors

Monitoring the health of the phonatory system plays a key role for the voice professionals, which are people who use the voice as a work tool. The voice quality can be assessed by means of parameters extracted from the vocal signal sensed by a contact sensor placed at the base of the neck, that is sensitive to the skin vibration related to the phonation. The use of a contact sensor is preferable to a microphone in air because of its lower sensitivity to the acoustiaal background noise. This paper focus on the development of a system for the characterization of the contact sensor that can be used for this purpose: an apparatus that can mimic the phonatory system and can act like a standard for testing the sensors. Such a system has been created and preliminary tested and characterized, in order to point out the similarity with the real phonatory system and to bring out any critical issue.