Development of Hand Gesture Controlled Electrolarynx

The feasibility of using a motion sensor to replace a conventional electrolarynx(EL) user interface was explored. Forearm motion signals from MEMS accelerometer was used to provide on/off and prosody control. The small transducer was placed against the throat using support bandage. A battery operated ARM-based small control unit was developed and placed on the wrist. The control unit can convert the tilt angle into the pitch frequency. Speech generation was tested with various forearm movements, and then a simple and small action was chosen to control the device. A simple comparison study has been made with well-trained normal speakers. Results of the study showed that the prototype system was able to produce the pitch patterns similar to those in natural utterances.