Speech Research – Robust Speaker Recognition and Room-Volume Estimation
This research was performed in cooperation with Prof. Boaz Rafaely from the department of Electrical and Computer Eng, BGU. The influence of acoustic reverberation was researched in order to develop a robust speaker recognition system and a system for estimation of the volume of a room. The research was granted, partially, by the Israeli chief scientist, Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor [MAGNETON, 2006-2007] for cooperation with NICE Systems LTD (Zigel was a PI in the first year of the MAGNETON from NICE systems side). Different aspects were examined and developed. We investigated the effect of reverberation on the optimal GMM order of speaker recognition systems [Shabtai, Zigel, and Rafaely, 2008a], and on feature normalization [Shabtai, Zigel, and Rafaely, 2008b] [Shabtai, Rafaely, and Zigel, 2011] [Shabtai, Rafaely, and Zigel, 2010]. A robust speaker recognition system was developed [Peer, Rafaely, and Zigel, 2008a] [Peer, Rafaely, and Zigel, 2008b] [Peer, Rafaely, and Zigel, 2008c]. A novel system for room-volume estimation was developed; a system based on room impulse response (RIR) parameters [Shabtai, Zigel, and Rafaely, 2009a] [Shabtai, Zigel, and Rafaely, 2009b] [Shabtai, Zigel, and Rafaely, 2010a], and a system based on speech features [Shabtai, Zigel, and Rafaely, 2010b].