Multimodal acquisition of articulatory data: Geometrical and temporal registration

International audienceAcquisition of dynamic articulatory data is of major importance for studying speech production. It turns out that one technique alone often is not enough to get a correct coverage of the whole vocal tract at a sufficient sampling rate. Ultrasound (US) imaging has been proposed as a good acquisition technique for the tongue surface because it offers a good temporal sampling, does not alter speech production, is cheap and widely available. However, it cannot be used alone and this paper describes a multimodal acquisition system which uses electromagnetography sensors to locate the US probe. The paper particularly focuses on the calibration of the ultrasound modality which is the key point of the system. This approach enables ultrasound data to be merged with other data. The use of the system is illustrated via an experiment consisting of measuring the minimal tongue to palate distance in order to evaluate and design Magnetic Resonance Imaging protocols well suited for the acquisition of 3D images of the vocal tract. Compared to manual registration of acquisition modalities which is often used in acquisition of articulatory data, the approach presented relies on automatic techniques well founded from geometrical and mathematical points of view