Formant frequency estimation using a Mel-scale LPC algorithm

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm for F1 and F2 formant estimation. The proposed algorithm combines a linear predictive analysis together with the Mel psychoacoustical perceptual scale. The algorithm was tested for the first 2 formants and produced good performance for male and female speakers, adults and children. In contrast to the classical LPC algorithm which requires variable-order prediction filters to take into account different formant patterns, the proposed algorithm is capable of extracting these formants with a fixed-order prediction filter.