Eigen-Voice Based Anchor Modeling System for Speaker Identification Using MLLR Super-Vector

In this paper, we propose an anchor modeling scheme where instead of conventional “anchor” speakers, we use eigenvectors that span the Eigen-voice space. The computational advantage of conventional Anchor-modeling based speaker identification system comes from representing all speakers in a space spanned by a small number of anchor speakers instead of having separate speaker models. The conventional “anchor” speakers are usually chosen using data-driven clustering and the number of such speakers are also empirically determined. The use of proposed eigen-voice based anchors provide a more systematic way of spanning the speaker-space and in determining the optimal number of anchors. In our proposed method, the eigenvector space is built using the Maximum Likelihood Linear Regression (MLLR) super-vectors of non-target speakers. Further, the proposed method does not require calculation of the likelihood with respect to anchor speaker models to create the speaker-characterization vector as done in conventional anchor systems. Instead, speakers are characterized with respect to eigen-space by projecting the speaker’s MLLR-super vector onto the eigen-voice space. This makes the method computationally efficient. Experimental results show that the proposed method consistently performs better than conventional anchor modeling technique for different number of anchor speakers.