Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Through the Karoo Array Telescope, and its extension MeerKAT, South Africa is demonstrating its capabilities to host the most powerful radio telescope ever, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). This new interferometer is intended to assist radio astronomers in unlocking the mysteries concealed in the far regions of the universe. A thorough investigation of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) sources at each stage of the design becomes relevant for the success of the project. The electromagnetic coupling through coaxial cables is the main focus of this thesis since 90% of the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) problems come from inadequate system layout and grounding, where cabling plays the major role. Interest revolves around better noise immunity, low radiation and cost. Transfer impedance (ZT ) and shielding e ectiveness (SE) are used as the cable selection criteria. Several measurements of coaxial cables identi ed on KAT-7 have been performed for ZT characterisation from 300 kHz up to 1.3 GHz. A current injection method is used to identify the ZT for the low frequency region. We derived the high frequency part of ZT , with a reverberation chamber technique (RC) measuring shielding e ectiveness. At rst, we calibrated the RC according to the relevant IEC 61000-4-21 standard and evaluated the result with an Open Area Test Site (OATS) E- eld estimation. The accuracy of the E- eld within the chamber is also addressed, based on statistical analysis of the chamber's independent samples. The OATS E- eld equivalent determination showed a good correlation with the OATS E- eld data of a standard radiator. A coaxial air-line ZT veri ed the theoretical ZT model within 7 dB and showed the expected 20 dB/decade slope variation. Furthermore, the braiding porpoising e ect has been noticed with some cable samples. Here, a variation less than 20 dB/decade occurs at lower frequency. Then, the slope changes to 20 dB/decade at high frequency. This study illustrates a practical comparison of cable performance and constitutes a rst approach to RFI mitigation of the MeerKAT cabling system. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Deur middel van die Karoo Reeks Teleskoop, asook sy uitbreiding MeerKAT, demonstreer Suid-Afrika sy vermo om die mees kragtige radioteleskoop ooit, die Vierkante Kilometer Reeks (SKA), te vestig. Hierdie nuwe interferometer is bedoel om radiosterrekundiges te help in die ontsluiting van die geheimenisse wat versteek is in die verre reike van die heelal. 'n Deeglike ondersoek van Radio Frekwensie Steurings (RFS) bronne by elke stadium van die ontwerp is belangrik vir die sukses van die projek. Die elektromagnetiese koppeling deur koaksiale kabels is die hoo okus van hierdie tesis, aangesien 90% van die elektromagnetiese versoenbaarheid (EMV) probleme ontstaan as gevolg van onvoldoende stelsel-uitleg en beaarding, waar kabels die hoofrol speel. Beter ruis-immuniteit, lae straling en koste vorm die areas van belang. Oordragimpedansie (ZT ) en afskermingsdoeltre endheid (SE) word gebruik as die kabelkeuringskriteria. Verskeie metings van koaksiale kabels wat op KAT-7 gedenti seer is, is uitgevoer vir ZT karakterisering van 300 kHz tot 1,3 GHz. 'n Stroom-induseringsmetode is gebruik om die ZT vir die lae-frekwensiebereik te identi seer. Ons het die ho-frekwensie deel van ZT afgelei met 'n weerkaatsingskamer tegniek (RC) wat afskermingsdoeltre endheid meet. Eerstens het ons die RC gekalibreer volgens die relevante IEC 61000-4-21 standaard en die resultaat met 'n Ope Area Toetsterrein (OAT) E-veld benadering gevalueer. Die akkuraatheid van die E-veld in die kamer is ook aangespreek, gebaseer op 'n statistiese analise van die kamer se onafhanklike monsters. Die OAT E-veld ekwivalente benadering het goed met die OAT E-veld data van 'n standaard uistraler gekorreleer. 'n Koaksiale lugmedium-transmissielyn ZT bevestig die teoretiese ZT model binne 7 dB en het ook die verwagte 20 dB/dekade variasie in helling getoon. Verder is die golwende e ek oor die kabelomvlegting opgemerk met sekere kabels. Hier is 'n variasie van minder as 20 dB/dekade gevind by die laer frekwensie. Dan verander die helling na 20 dB/dekade teen ho frekwensie. Hierdie studie toon 'n praktiese vergelyking van die verrigting van die kabel en 'n eerste benadering tot RFS tempering van die MeerKAT kabelstelsel.

Les tests de dispositifs de communication sans fil peuvent être réalisés en utilisant des simulations numériques ou des sondeurs de canaux. Bien que ne reflétant pas un environnement électromagnétique réaliste, une chambre réverbérante peut néanmoins émuler un canal de propagation comparable à un cas réel si l’on modifie convenablement ses propriétés. Les propriétés des signaux générés dans une chambre réverbérante sont fonction de différents paramètres. Au cours des trois années de thèse, nous avons analysé et mis en oeuvre plusieurs techniques pour mesurer et contrôler ces paramètres à l’intérieur d’une chambre réverbérante. D’abord, différents estimateurs du facteur K sont testés et leurs propriétés sont évaluées. Nous présentons les limites de fonctionnement utiles dans lesquelles différents estimateurspeuvent être utilisés. Ensuite, nous proposons deux nouveaux estimateurs qui utilisent comme données d’entrée seulement l’enveloppe du signal. Ils apportent en outre des améliorations sur la gamme des valeurs détectables du facteur K. Une des possibilités pour contrôler un canal de propagation à l’intérieur d’une chambre réverbérante est d’utiliser des matériaux absorbants. Nous présentons une méthode pour estimer la surface équivalente moyenne d’absorption en utilisant une seule antenne. Cette méthode exploite la mesure de la bande de cohérence du canal de propagation. Ensuite, nous étendons notre analyse à la prédiction de la surface équivalente moyenne d’absorption lorsqueles dimensions géométriques et les propriétés électromagnétiques des absorbants sont connues. On crée ensuite un modèle de canal de propagation en exploitant les régimes transitoire et permanent du signal. Avec ce modèle, selon les informations disponibles, on peut extraire le facteur K, la surface équivalente moyenne d’absorption et différents paramètres temporels (i.e., profil de l’étalement des retards). Nous poursuivons avec deux applications possibles des chambres réverbérantes. Tout d’abord, on évalue le gain d’une antenne à partir de mesures du coefficient de réflexion decette antenne. Nous étendons notre analyse à l’évaluation du diagramme de rayonnement de l’antenne et de son erreur d’estimation. Nous estimons aussi la désadaptation de l’antenne et son ouverture à 3 dB. La deuxième application porte sur l’évaluation du gain de diversité dans la chambre réverbérante. Nous isolons les influences des efficacités des antennes, des puissances des composantes brassées, et des facteurs K sur l’évaluation du gain de diversité.On obtient une relation simple de la corrélation de puissance en fonction de la corrélation complexe lorsque les facteurs K sur différents branches ne sont pas identiques. Nous montrons que lors d’un fort déséquilibre de facteur K il est impossible de conclure sur le gain de diversité à partir de la seule évaluation de la corrélation d’enveloppe ou de puissance. À l’aide de simulations statistiques on compare le gain de diversité mesuré avec les valeurs simulées. / The testing of wireless devices is generally done using numerical simulations or channel sounders. Though a reverberation chamber does not reflect a real transmission environment, its properties can also be appropriately modifiedto emulate one. This emulation may be achieved thanks to various parameters. Our PhD thesis has been devoted toanalyze and implement several techniques to measure and control these parameters inside reverberation chambers.First we evaluate different K-factor estimators and their capabilities. We present the useful limits in which severalcomplex, phase and envelope K-factor estimators can be used. Then, we propose two new envelope-based estimatorsimproving the useful range of detectable values of K-factor. One of the possibilities to control a propagation channel inside areverberation chamber is to use absorbing materials. We present a method to estimate the average absorbing crosssection by using only one antenna. This is done with measurements of coherence bandwidth of the channel. Then,we extend our analysis to predict the average absorbing cross section when we know the physical dimensions of aparallelepiped absorber as well its electromagnetic properties. Next, we create a model of the reverberation chamberpropagation channel using the transient regime and steady state of the signal. With this model, depending on the availableinformation, we can extract the K-factor, the average absorbing cross section and different time spreads parameters (i.e., mean delay spread and the root mean square delay spread). We continue with two possible applications of the reverberation chamber. First, we evaluate the gain of an antenna from only the measurement of reflection coefficient. We extend our analysis to the evaluation of antenna pattern and its estimation errors. We also estimate the antenna mismatch and half power beamwidth. The second application deals with the evaluation of the diversity gain in reverberation chamber. We isolate the effects on the diversity gain due to different antenna efficiencies, stirred powers and K-factors. Then, we estimate a simple relation of the power correlation as a function of the complex correlation when the K-factors on different branches are not identical. We show that using an envelope/power correlation as a criterion to characterize the diversity may bias the conclusions without taking into account other parameters. Using statistical simulations we compare the measured diversity gain with the simulated values.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo avaliar o comportamento dos campos eletromagnéticos no interior de câmaras reverberantes de modos misturados através do método numérico TLM (Transmission Line Matrix). Inicialmente, apresenta-se uma descrição dos diversos tipos de câmaras aplicáveis na avaliação de desempenho de compatibilidade eletromagnética de equipamentos e sistemas elétricos, destacando-se suas principais características físicas e geométricas, com ênfase nas câmaras reverberantes. Os aspectos teóricos relacionados à descrição do método TLM são detalhados e sua aplicação na avaliação do ambiente eletromagnético das câmaras é então abordada. Diversos resultados são apresentados, considerando-se configurações pré-definidas de câmaras reverberantes, ressaltando-se a definição e cálculo de índices de mérito, bem como os principais aspectos relacionados à representação e definição de critérios adotados nas simulações destas. / The aim of this report is the evaluation of the behavior of electromagnetic fields inside reverberation chambers by means of Transmission Line Modeling (TLM). Initially, it is presented a description of several kinds of chambers applicable for electromagnetic compatibility tests followed by a more detailed description regarding reverberation chambers. Theoretical aspects of TLM method and its application for electromagnetic fields solution are covered. Some results are presented, considering pre-defined reverberation chambers configurations, highlighting some merit indicators and the main aspects adopted on its simulation.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Francisco J. Fraga / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia da Informação, 2014. / Most speaker verifcation systems are based on Gaussian mixture models and more recently on the so-called i-vector. These two methods are affected in mismatched testtrain conditions, which might be caused by vocal-efort variability, different speakingstyles or channel efects. In this work, we compared the impact of speech rate variation and room reverberation on both methods. We found that performance degradation due to variation on speech rate can be mitigated by adding fast speech samples into the training set, which decreased equal error rates for Gaussian mixture models and i-vector, respectively. Regarding reverberation, we investigated the achievements of both methods when three diferent reverberation compensation techniques are applied in order to overcome performance degradation. The results showed that having reverberant background models separated by diferent levels of reverberation can bene t both methods, with the i-vector providing the best performance in that scenario. Finally, the performance of two auditory-inspired features, mel-frequency cepstral coe ficients and the so-called modulation spectrum features, are compared in presence of room reverberation. For the speaker verifcation system considered in this work, modulation spectrum features are equally afected by reverberation time and have their performance degraded as the level of reverberation increases.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo avaliar o comportamento dos campos eletromagnéticos no interior de câmaras reverberantes de modos misturados através do método numérico TLM (Transmission Line Matrix). Inicialmente, apresenta-se uma descrição dos diversos tipos de câmaras aplicáveis na avaliação de desempenho de compatibilidade eletromagnética de equipamentos e sistemas elétricos, destacando-se suas principais características físicas e geométricas, com ênfase nas câmaras reverberantes. Os aspectos teóricos relacionados à descrição do método TLM são detalhados e sua aplicação na avaliação do ambiente eletromagnético das câmaras é então abordada. Diversos resultados são apresentados, considerando-se configurações pré-definidas de câmaras reverberantes, ressaltando-se a definição e cálculo de índices de mérito, bem como os principais aspectos relacionados à representação e definição de critérios adotados nas simulações destas. / The aim of this report is the evaluation of the behavior of electromagnetic fields inside reverberation chambers by means of Transmission Line Modeling (TLM). Initially, it is presented a description of several kinds of chambers applicable for electromagnetic compatibility tests followed by a more detailed description regarding reverberation chambers. Theoretical aspects of TLM method and its application for electromagnetic fields solution are covered. Some results are presented, considering pre-defined reverberation chambers configurations, highlighting some merit indicators and the main aspects adopted on its simulation.

Les Noyaux actifs de galaxie (AGN) incluent les sources quasi stables les plus énergétiques connues dans l'univers jusqu'à aujourd’hui. Du fait de leur distance, de leur haute luminosité et de leur petite taille, leurs régions intérieures ne sont pas directement résolvables avec les télescopes actuels. C’est pour ces raisons que nous avons besoin de techniques d’observation indirectes et de modèles théoriques pour discerner leur structure. Dans cette optique, le rôle de la polarimétrie est crucial. Elle a été ces dernières années la méthode clé qui a permis de développer le modèle unifié des AGN et pourrait, à l’avenir, nous offrir des nouveaux éléments pour sonder les régions des AGN irrésolues. Dans cette thèse, j’ai conduit des simulations sur les transferts radiatifs relatifs aux rayonnements continus émis des différentes régions intérieures des AGN en utilisant la nouvelle technique de cartographie de réverbération polarimétrique. Ce travail a été inspiré par les recherches de Gaskell et al. (2012). Le but de cette recherche est de fournir des modèles théoriques sur les différents composants des AGN en considérant le rayonnement polarisé en fonction du temps. La polarisation induite par la diffusion a été modélisée et différentes géométries de poussières circumnucléaires ont été testées. Les résultats incluent les effets de l’agrégation des poussières et différentes compositions de poussière. Pour étendre le modèle, les effets complémentaires des vents ionisés s’étirant en direction des pôles ont également été étudiés ainsi que ceux de l’anneau de diffusion équatorial théorique, avec pour postulat qu'il explique l’angle de polarisation observé dans les pôles des AGN. Les simulations ont été exécutées en utilisant une version du code STOKES incluant la dépendance temporelle. Il sera possible d'étendre ce travail à l'avenir. Les prochaines étapes suggérées incluront des raies d'émission aux modélisations ainsi que plus de complexité concernant la géométrie et la distribution de la poussière et/ou des électrons dans les régions de diffusion. Ce travail sera important pour profiter de futures données observationnelles systématiques avec un bon échantillonnage temporel. / Active galactic nuclei (AGN) include the most powerful quasi-steady sources of energy known to date in the universe. Due to their distance, high brightness and small size, their inner regions are not directly resolvable with current telescopes. This is the reason why indirect techniques and theoretical models are needed to discern their structure. In this scenario the role of polarimetry is crucial. In the past it was the key method that led to the development of the Unified Model of AGN and in the future, it may give us new clues to probe unresolved AGN regions. In this thesis, I conducted radiative transfer simulations for continuous radiation of different inner regions of the AGN using the new technique of polarimetric reverberation mapping. This work has been inspired by the work of Gaskell et al. (2012). The goal of this research is to provide theoretical models of the different components of the AGN considering time-dependent polarized radiation. Scattering induced polarization has been modeled and different circumnuclear dust geometries have been explored. The results include the effects of clumpiness and different dust compositions. To further extend the model, the effects of additional extended ionized winds along the polar direction have also been explored as well as the putative equatorial scattering ring postulated to explain the polarization angle observed in pole-on AGN. The simulations were run using a time-dependent version of the STOKES code. It will be possible to extend this work in the future. Suggested future steps are including emission lines in the models, as well as more complexity in the geometry and distribution of dust and/or electrons in the scattering regions. This work will be important for taking advantage of systematic future observational data with good temporal sampling.

Several methods are developed to measure absorption and scattering coefficients of materials. In this study, a new method based on cepstral deconvolution technique is proposed. A reverberation room method standardized recently by ISO (ISO 17497-1) is taken as the reference for measurements. Several measurements were conducted in a physically scaled reverberation room and results are evaluated according to these two methods, namely, the method given in the standard and cepstral deconvolution method. Two methods differ from each other in the estimation of specular parts of room impulse responses essential for determination of scattering coefficients. In the standard method, specular part is found by synchronous averaging of impulse responses. However, cepstral deconvolution method utilizes cepstral analysis to obtain the specular part instead of averaging. Results obtained by both of these two approaches are compared for five different test materials. Both of the methods gave almost same values for absorption coefficients. On the other hand, lower scattering coefficient values have been obtained for cepstral deconvolution with respect to the ISO method.

Bei der Überführung eines wissenschaftlichen Laborsystems zur automatischen Spracherkennung in eine reale Anwendung ergeben sich verschiedene praktische Problemstellungen, von denen eine der Verlust an Erkennungsleistung durch umgebende akustische Störungen ist. Im Gegensatz zu additiven Störungen wie Lüfterrauschen o. ä. hat die Wissenschaft bislang die Störung des Raumhalls bei der Spracherkennung nahezu ignoriert. Dabei besitzen, wie in der vorliegenden Dissertation deutlich gezeigt wird, bereits geringfügig hallende Räume einen stark störenden Einfluss auf die Leistungsfähigkeit von Spracherkennern. Mit dem Ziel, die Erkennungsleistung wieder in einen praktisch benutzbaren Bereich zu bringen, nimmt sich die Arbeit dieser Problemstellung an und schlägt Lösungen vor. Der Hintergrund der wissenschaftlichen Aktivitäten ist die Erstellung von funktionsfähigen Sprachbenutzerinterfaces für Gerätesteuerungen im Wohn- und Büroumfeld, wie z.~B. bei der Hausautomation. Aus diesem Grund werden praktische Randbedingungen wie die Restriktionen von embedded Computerplattformen in die Lösungsfindung einbezogen. Die Argumentation beginnt bei der Beschreibung der raumakustischen Umgebung und der Ausbreitung von Schallfeldern in Räumen. Es wird theoretisch gezeigt, dass die Störung eines Sprachsignals durch Hall von zwei Parametern abhängig ist: der Sprecher-Mikrofon-Distanz (SMD) und der Nachhallzeit T60. Um die Abhängigkeit der Erkennungsleistung vom Grad der Hallstörung zu ermitteln, wird eine Anzahl von Erkennungsexperimenten durchgeführt, die den Einfluss von T60 und SMD nachweisen. Weitere Experimente zeigen, dass die Spracherkennung kaum durch hochfrequente Hallanteile beeinträchtigt wird, wohl aber durch tieffrequente. In einer Literaturrecherche wird ein Überblick über den Stand der Technik zu Maßnahmen gegeben, die den störenden Einfluss des Halls unterdrücken bzw. kompensieren können. Jedoch wird auch gezeigt, dass, obwohl bei einigen Maßnahmen von Verbesserungen berichtet wird, keiner der gefundenen Ansätze den o. a. praktischen Einsatzbedingungen genügt. In dieser Arbeit wird die Methode Harmonicity-based Feature Analysis (HFA) vorgeschlagen. Sie basiert auf drei Ideen, die aus den Betrachtungen der vorangehenden Kapitel abgeleitet werden. Experimentelle Ergebnisse weisen die Verbesserung der Erkennungsleistung in halligen Umgebungen nach. Es werden sogar praktisch relevante Erkennungsraten erzielt, wenn die Methode mit verhalltem Training kombiniert wird. Die HFA wird gegen Ansätze aus der Literatur evaluiert, die ebenfalls praktischen Implementierungskriterien genügen. Auch Kombinationen der HFA und einigen dieser Ansätze werden getestet. Im letzten Kapitel werden die beiden Basistechnologien Stimm\-haft-Stimmlos-Entscheidung und Grundfrequenzdetektion umfangreich unter Hallbedingungen getestet, da sie Voraussetzung für die Funktionsfähigkeit der HFA sind. Als Ergebnis wird dargestellt, dass derzeit für beide Technologien kein Verfahren existiert, das unter Hallbedingungen robust arbeitet. Es kann allerdings gezeigt werden, dass die HFA trotz der Unsicherheiten der Verfahren arbeitet und signifikante Steigerungen der Erkennungsleistung erreicht. / Automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems used in real-world indoor scenarios suffer from performance degradation if noise and reverberation conditions differ from the training conditions of the recognizer. This thesis deals with the problem of room reverberation as a cause of distortion in ASR systems. The background of this research is the design of practical command and control applications, such as a voice controlled light switch in rooms or similar applications. Therefore, the design aims to incorporate several restricting working conditions for the recognizer and still achieve a high level of robustness. One of those design restrictions is the minimisation of computational complexity to allow the practical implementation on an embedded processor. One chapter comprehensively describes the room acoustic environment, including the behavior of the sound field in rooms. It addresses the speaker room microphone (SRM) system which is expressed in the time domain as the room impulse response (RIR). The convolution of the RIR with the clean speech signal yields the reverberant signal at the microphone. A thorough analysis proposes that the degree of the distortion caused by reverberation is dependent on two parameters, the reverberation time T60 and the speaker-to-microphone distance (SMD). To evaluate the dependency of the recognition rate on the degree of distortion, a number of experiments has been successfully conducted, confirming the above mentioned dependency of the two parameters, T60 and SMD. Further experiments have shown that ASR is barely affected by high-frequency reverberation, whereas low frequency reverberation has a detrimental effect on the recognition rate. A literature survey concludes that, although several approaches exist which claim significant improvements, none of them fulfils the above mentioned practical implementation criteria. Within this thesis, a new approach entitled 'harmonicity-based feature analysis' (HFA) is proposed. It is based on three ideas that are derived in former chapters. Experimental results prove that HFA is able to enhance the recognition rate in reverberant environments. Even practical applicable results are achieved when HFA is combined with reverberant training. The method is further evaluated against three other approaches from the literature. Also combinations of methods are tested. In a last chapter the two base technologies fundamental frequency (F0) estimation and voiced unvoiced decision (VUD) are evaluated in reverberant environments, since they are necessary to run HFA. This evaluation aims to find one optimal method for each of these technologies. The results show that all F0 estimation methods and also the VUD methods have a strong decreasing performance in reverberant environments. Nevertheless it is shown that HFA is able to deal with uncertainties of these base technologies as such that the recognition performance still improves.

<p>  Sound transmission loss of vehicle seals was studied in this thesis. Reverberation room test and semi-anechoic chamber test were respectively studied. By comparing the sound pressure level, sound intensity level and average sound power level at the receiving side, it proved that a simple sound pressure level test may obtain same measurement accuracy when there is little reflected sound. A semi-anechoic chamber was designed for testing sound transmission losses of the seals on a trial vehicle. By comparing the sound pressure levels between the location of the passenger ear and door area, it proved that most of outside sound energy passed through the door seals into the interior. The sound transmission losses of different sealing conditions were measured which included well sealed and imperfectly sealed conditions; Sound pressure levels at passenger’s ear in three different types of vehicles were also compared, these comparison results indicated this laboratory was capable of distinguishing different sealing conditions. The installation procedure was compared with the one in reverberation room test. Numerical analysis showed that the latter method produced a different compression shape which would definitely influence the sound insulation abilities of the seals.</p><p>  The transmission mechanism of the acoustic waves through a vehicle seal was also discussed. Contact analysis showed high compression ratio leaded to tremendous inner stress intensity. But any further increase of the contact depth would not improve the effect of wind noise prevention. A vehicle seal with a complex shape was replaced by a simple model. The sound transmission theory of multiple partitions on the basis of mass law was applied. Whereas, compared with the experimental result, a different trend in the high frequency range was found. When taking the transmission though the side material and integration of incident angle into account, the result was quite similar to the experimental one. FEM analysis was also performed. The majority of sound power was believed to transmit along the seal wall into the interior instead of passing through the multiple partitions. A distorted circular duct model is believed to be close to the real geometry.</p><p> </p>

Modern speech communication technologies expose users to perceptual quality degradations that were not experienced earlier with conventional telephone systems. Since perceived speech quality is a major contributor to the end user's perception of quality of service, speech quality estimation has become an important research field. In this dissertation, perceptual quality estimators are proposed for several emerging speech communication applications, in particular for i) wireless communications with noise suppression capabilities, ii) wireless-VoIP communications, iii) far-field hands-free speech communications, and iv) text-to-speech systems. First, a general-purpose speech quality estimator is proposed based on statistical models of normative speech behaviour and on innovative techniques to detect multiple signal distortions. The estimators do not depend on a clean reference signal hence are termed ``blind." Quality meters are then distributed along the network chain to allow for both quality degradations and quality enhancements to be handled. In order to improve estimation performance for wireless communications, statistical models of noise-suppressed speech are also incorporated. Next, a hybrid signal-and-link-parametric quality estimation paradigm is proposed for emerging wireless-VoIP communications. The algorithm uses VoIP connection parameters to estimate a base quality representative of the packet switching network. Signal-based distortions are then detected and quantified in order to adjust the base quality accordingly. The proposed hybrid methodology is shown to overcome the limitations of existing pure signal-based and pure link parametric algorithms. Temporal dynamics information is then investigated for quality diagnosis for hands-free speech communications. A spectro-temporal signal representation, where speech and reverberation tail components are shown to be separable, is used for blind characterization of room acoustics. In particular, estimators of reverberation time, direct-to-reverberation energy ratio, and reverberant speech quality are developed. Lastly, perceptual quality estimation for text-to-speech systems is addressed. Text- and speaker-independent hidden Markov models, trained on naturally produced speech, are used to capture normative spectral-temporal information. Deviations from the models, computed by means of a log-likelihood measure, are shown to be reliable indicators of multiple quality attributes including naturalness, fluency, and intelligibility. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2008-12-22 14:54:49.28