Abstract
Vocal fold disorders impact significantly on quality of life. Specifically, vocal fold paralysis can affect the ability to speak and breathe. To date, there has been a shortage of studies providing a quantitative characterisation of the effect of paralysed vocal folds on the frequency and amplitude of sound in phonation. In this paper we propose a novel bioinspired robotic simulator that physically replicates both healthy vocal fold function and two main pathological conditions in vocal fold paralysis: bilateral and unilateral paralysis. By analysing the audio data produced by our robotic simulator a correlation can be drawn between each type of paralysis and the effects on amplitude and frequency. Results show that in a healthy configuration, frequency response and vocal fold stress are mostly proportional and that their relationship is highly impacted by paralysis. In addition, our experimental results provide a mapping between vocal fold position and tension in our simulator and the resulting sound. These insights will inform laryngeal surgical procedures and help improve the effectiveness of current implant systems.
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Giannaccini, M.E. et al. (2019). Robotic Simulator of Vocal Fold Paralysis. In: Martinez-Hernandez, U., et al. Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11556. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24741-6_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24741-6_12
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