After alm ost three scores of years of basic and applied research, the field of speech processing is, at present, undergoing a rapid growth in terms of both performance and applications and this is fueHed by the advances being made in the areas of microelectronics, computation and algorithm design.Speech processing relates to three aspects of voice communications: -Speech Coding and transmission which is mainly concerned with man-to man voice communication. -Speech Synthesis which deals with machine-to-man communication. -Speech Recognition which is related to man-to-machine communication. Widespread application and use of low-bit rate voice codec., synthesizers and recognizers which are all speech processing products requires ideaHy internationally accepted quality assessment and evaluation methods as weH as speech processing standards so that they may be interconnected and used independently of their designers and manufacturers without costly interfaces. This book presents, in a tutorial manner, both fundamental and applied aspects of the above topics which have been prepared by weH-known specialists in their respective areas. The book is based on lectures which were sponsored by AGARD/NATO and delivered by the authors, in several NATO countries, to audiences consisting mainly of academic and industrial R&D engineers and physicists as weH as civil and military C3I systems planners and designers.
