Short description

The electro-larynx (EL) is a hand-held, battery-driven device. It is one possibility to regain speech for people who had to undergo an operation, where the larynx and the containing vocal folds were removed (typically due to larynx cancer). The device is held against the throat and its vibrations are transmitted through the neck. Then the patient can create speech by modulating the energy in the vocal tract.

The characteristic of the resulting speech strongly depends on the type of transducer in the electro-larynx. While previous products use an electro-mechanical design it would be beneficial to investigate alternative transducer strategies. We already build a prototype based on an alternative transducer mechanism. In the next step we want to optimize the new prototype in terms of leaking noise and wear-ability.

Your Tasks

• Review of literature
• Optimize existing prototype
• Develop comparable measurement procedure
• Comparison to existing products
• Documentation

Your Profile/Prerequisites

• Motivation and interest in the topic
• Background information in electro-acoustical control and measurement engineering
• Background information in Matlab and (speech) signal processing

Contact:

Martin Hagmüller ({hagmueller}@tugraz.at or 0316/873 4377) Anna Katharina Fuchs ({anna.fuchs}@tugraz.at or 0316/873 4367)