Abstract
"Singing" is one of the most important artistic human activities, but it is very difficult to realize an artificial mechanical vocalizing system. The purpose of this research is to develop a mechanical "Singer Robot" with artificial larynx. We have already developed a singer robot that can generate Japanese 5 vowels [a], [i], [u], [e], and [o], and it can change the voice pitch by manipulating the artificial vocal cord. The purpose of the recent research is to make the robot utter all consonants. In order to utter consonants, it is inevitable to keep the vocal tract airtight momentarily. Therefore, the robot has been improved to have a mechanism for keeping the vocal tract airtight. We have developed a new mechanism for keeping the vocal tract airtight by using the oversized artificial tongue that can move or slide between the two walls lubricated by silicone oil. The robot has become to be able to generate some of the Japanese consonants by using the mechanism. The experimental results are shown and discussed by using graphs of sound waveforms and sound spectrogram of the voices with consonants.
