Experimental Results for Baseline Speech Recognition Performance using Input Acquired from a Linear Microphone Array

Abstract

In this paper, baseline speech recognition performance is determined both for a single remote microphone and for a signal derived from a delay-and-sum beamformer using an eight-microphone linear array. An HMM-based, connected-speech, 38-word vocabulary (alphabet, digits, 'space', 'period'), talker-independent speech recognition system is used for testing performance. Normal performance, with no language model, i.e., raw word-level performance, is currently about 81% for a set of talkers not in the training set and about 91% for training set data. The system has been trained and tested using a close-talking bead-mounted microphone. Since a meaningful comparison requires using the same speech, the existing speech database was appropriately pre-filtered, played out through a transducer (speaker) in the room environment, picked-up by the microphone array, and re-stored as a digital file. The resulting file was post-processed and used as input to the recognizer; the recognition performance indicates the effect of the input device. The baseline experiment showed that both a single remote microphone and the beamformed signal reduced performance by 12% in a room with no other talkers. For the array tested, the error is generally attributable to reverberation off the floor and ceiling.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1992
Accession Number
ADA457882

Entities

People

  • Harvey F. Silverman
  • John E. Adock
  • Paul C. Meuse
  • Stuart E. Kirtman

Organizations

  • Brown University

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Arrays
  • Acquisition
  • Arrays
  • Automated Speech Recognition
  • Background Noise
  • Data Acquisition
  • Databases
  • Hidden Markov Models
  • Linear Arrays
  • Markov Models
  • Microphones
  • Models
  • Noise
  • Probability
  • Recognition
  • Standards
  • Transducers

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Phased Array Antenna Design.
  • Speech Processing/Speech Recognition.

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Bayesian Inference
  • AI & ML - Machine Translation
  • Space