A fundamental frequency estimator for the real-time processing of musical sounds for cochlear implants

A real-time fundamental frequency (F0) estimator that operates in the frequency domain was developed for the processing of musical sounds in cochlear-implant (CI) sound processors. Its performance was evaluated with male and female sung-vowel stimuli in quiet, and in white noise and babble noise. The error rates of the developed F0 estimator were much lower than those of a temporal F0 estimator that was previously used in CI sound processors, and were comparable to the published error rates of F0 estimators that were designed for other applications and evaluated with speech or musical instrument stimuli. It is envisaged that the experimental F0 estimator will be used in advanced CI coding strategies to improve the perception of pitch by CI users, which may result in improved perception of musical sounds, as well as improved speech perception for tonal languages.