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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

signal processing, speech intelligibility, throat microphones

College

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Effective communication, vital to successful operations in many sectors, including military, business, and industry, depends largely on the receiver’s ability to accurately interpret the transmitted signal, generally referred to as speech intelligibility (SI). The presence of elevated noise can be seriously detrimental to SI. To reduce ambient noise in communication through audio microphones, it is possible to use a throat microphone (TM), which senses vocal fold vibrations through the skin on the speaker’s neck, as opposed to detecting the airborne sound wave emanating from the speaker’s mouth, as in standard microphones . Unfortunately, the position of the TM on the neck places it low on the vocal tract, far from the source of unvoiced sounds (such as the letters s and f). The result is an overrepresentation of voiced sounds (such as vowels), which leads to an unclear, muffled sound similar to the effect of speaking with the ears plugged.

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