A finite difference time domain vocal tract model with wall damping and visco-thermal losses.
Physics based vocal tract models are a good choice for speech synthesis, as they can allow for the exploration of many distinct timbres and intonations, simply through the modification of parameters. The main objective of this thesis was to use a 1D vocal tract model to generate realistic vowels and dipthongs. Vocal tract models incorporating lip radiation, wall damping and visco-thermal losses were implemented, using finite difference schemes. Analysis of the formant structures showed that incorporating losses had the effect of broadening the resonant peaks of the formant frequencies, eliminating the ringing sounds that often cause lossless vocal tract models to sound unnatural. This resulted in the production of sounds that closely resemble natural speech.
For full implementation details, please see: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334598622_A_time_domain_vocal_tract_model_with_wall_damping_and_visco-thermal_losses