Mechanical voice system and its singing performance

Sawada, Hideyuki; Nakamura, Masami; Higashimoto, T.

doi:10.1109/iros.2004.1389678

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…By pulling the cords, the tension increases so that the frequency of the generated sound becomes higher. The relationship between the tensile force and the fundamental frequency of a vocal sound generated by the robot is acquired by the auditory feedback learning before the singing and talking performance, and pitches during the utterance are kept in stable by the adaptive feedback control [4].…”

Section: Artificial Vocal Cords and Its Pitch Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One is a motor-pitch map, which associates motor positions with fundamental frequencies. It is acquired by comparing the pitches of vocalized sounds with the desired pitches, which cover the frequency range of speech [4]. The other is a motor-phoneme map, which associates motor positions with phonetic features of vowel and consonant sounds.…”

Section: Learning Of Vocalization Skillmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The robot consists of motor-controlled vocal organs such as vocal cords, a vocal tract and a nasal cavity to generate a natural voice imitating a human vocalization [1]- [4]. By introducing an auditory feedback learning with an adaptive control algorithm of pitch and phoneme, the robot is able to autonomously acquire the control skill of the mechanical system to vocalize stable vocal sounds imitating human speech.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Articulatory Reproduction of Voices of Hearing-Impaired by a Talking Robot

Sawada

Kitani

Hayashi

2007

2007 Frontiers in the Convergence of Bioscience and Information Technologies

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A talking and singing robot which adaptively learns the vocalization skill by an auditory feedback learning is being developed. The robot consists of motorcontrolled vocal organs such as vocal cords, a vocal tract and a nasal cavity to generate a natural voice imitating a human vocalization. The robot is applied to the training system of speech articulation for the hearing-impaired people, because the robot is able to reproduce their vocalization and to teach them how it is improved to generate clear speech. The paper briefly introduces the mechanical construction of the robot and how it autonomously acquires the vocalization skill in the auditory feedback learning by listening to human speech. Then the training system is described, together with the evaluation of the speech training by auditory impaired people.

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Section: Artificial Vocal Cords and Its Pitch Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Learning Of Vocalization Skillmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Articulatory Reproduction of Voices of Hearing-Impaired by a Talking Robot

Sawada

Kitani

Hayashi

2007

2007 Frontiers in the Convergence of Bioscience and Information Technologies

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“…Other voice synthesis machines have been developed by Kempelen [2], Umeda [3], Kawamura [4], Sawada [5] and the other researchers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Anthropomorphic Talking Robot having a Three-dimensional Articulation Mechanism and Improved Pitch Range

Fukui

Ishikawa

Sawa

et al. 2007

Proceedings 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

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We have developed a new three-dimensional talking robot Waseda Talker No. 6 (WT-6), which generates speech sounds by mechanically simulating articulatory motions as well as aero-acoustic phenomena in the vocal tract. WT-6 has 17-DOF vocal mechanism. It has three-dimensional lips, tongue, jaw and velum which form the 3D vocal tract structure. It also has an independent jaw opening/closing mechanism, which controls the relative tongue position in the vocal tract as well as the oral opening. The previous robot in the series had a 2D tongue and was not able to realize precise closure to produce human-like consonants such as /s/ or /r/. The new tongue, which can be controlled to form 3D shapes, is able to produce more realistic vocal tract shapes. The vocal cord model was also improved by adding a new pitch control mechanism that pushes from the side of the vocal cords. The pitch range is broader than that of the previous robot; it is sufficiently broad so as to be able to reproduce normal human speech. Preliminary experimental results showed improved synthesized speech quality for the vowels /a/, /u/ and /o/.

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“…A vocal synthesis machine was also developed by Kempelen W.V. [2], Umeda [3], Kawamura [4], Riches [5] and Sawada [6], and Sawada also developed an auditory feedback mechanism for singing. In 2003, WT-3 (Waseda Talker No.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Anthropomorphic Talking Robot having Sensory Feedback Mechanism and Vocal Cords based on Human Biomechanical Structure

Fukui

Nishikawa

Ikeo

et al.

The First IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, 2006. BioRob 2006.

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We developed an anthropomorphic talking robot WT-5 (Waseda Talker No. 5) having a sensor feedback mechanism and novel vocal cords based on human biological structures. The sensory feedback is more important when we producing obstacle consonant sounds,, compared to the auditory feedback mechanism. We reproduce this mechanism by placing tactile sensors and a pressure sensor on the palate of a talking robot and reducing the error between the pressure of the human voice and the robot consonant production. The vocal cord model was constructed with a similar structure to the biological structure of the human vocal cords and vibrated like those of a human. In addition, using these mechanisms, WT-5 could produce voices closer to those of a human. And also realized continuous mimic speaking that includes consonant sounds.

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Mechanical voice system and its singing performance

Cited by 15 publications

References 9 publications

Articulatory Reproduction of Voices of Hearing-Impaired by a Talking Robot

Articulatory Reproduction of Voices of Hearing-Impaired by a Talking Robot

New Anthropomorphic Talking Robot having a Three-dimensional Articulation Mechanism and Improved Pitch Range

New Anthropomorphic Talking Robot having Sensory Feedback Mechanism and Vocal Cords based on Human Biomechanical Structure

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