An alternative technique for measuring respiratory motion in speech

speech Christian Geng, Andrew Bates, Martin Ling,D.K. Arvind, Alice Turk and Phil Hoole The University of Edinrburgh,UK. Carstens Medizineletronik GmbH, Lenglern, Germany, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen, Germany. Introduction The current contribution aims to measure breathing-related movement during speech using a technique deviating from Respiratory Inductance Plethysmography (RIP) which is most commonly used for that purpose. In this pilot study, we are making first attempts to validate the use of tri-axial acceleromaters in measuring movements associated with breathing. In the current study we use wireless sensor devices that tracks the axis of rotation and obtains angular rates of breathing motion (see Figure 1). Previous research has already proven that accelerometers can be applied to respiratory phenomena: Bates et. al. (2010) have shown that the device worn on the abdomen is able to measure inclination changes due to breathing during sleep in monitoring situations. In particular, the analysis in Bates et. al. transforms the triaxial accelerations measured by a sensor attached to the abdomen into angular rates by extracting the principal rotational axis and integrating the obtained signal. Bates et. al. were able to show that in non-speech situations (in sleep), angular rate exhibits almost perfect correlations with measures of nasal flow obtained from a nasal cannula.