A novel pitch estimation technique using the Teager energy function

In speech processing, methods based on glottal closure instances (GCI) for pitch period estimation have proven to give good results. We propose here a new method to estimate the GCIs based on the Teager energy function (TEF). The technique is simple and has a low computational load. The method is based on the peak detection of the TEF for each frame. A smoothing technique is then implemented to pick the right value for the pitch period. Intensive experimental results showed that the proposed technique outperforms both the autocorrelation and cepstral based techniques.