Low-delay pitch tracking algorithm based on dynamic programming

Pitch is one of the most important parameters for describing speech characteristics. A one-way pitch tracking algorithm based on dynamic programming was developed to extract the correct pitch within a limited delay. The Unvoiced/Voiced (U/V) and power variety information was utilized to weight the penalty of consecutive speech segments. A flexible method was used instead of hard constraints, to keep the pitch contour continuity. The pitch variation penalty between the previous frame and the current one was restricted to attenuate the influence of the previous frame, since abrupt change in the pitch contour occasionally occur and the algorithm sometimes makes mistakes. Simulations based on the Keele database show that the gross error reduced by 2.32% compared to the traditional algorithm with only a one frame delay.