Validation of calibration procedures and uncertainty estimation of contact-microphone based vocal analyzers

This paper deals with the definition of calibration procedures that allow the traceability of parameters estimated by contact-microphone based vocal analyzers to be ensured. The parameters of interest are sound pressure level, fundamental frequency and voicing time percentage, which are commonly used for diagnostic purposes. The uncertainty of these parameters is estimated taking the contributions related to the defined calibration procedures into account and identifying the main influence quantities. A procedure is also proposed that is conceived to validate the results obtained at the end of a monitoring session performed with a vocal analyzer. Experimental results are reported that refer to a device developed by the authors, which uses an electret condenser microphone as the contact microphone