Approximating the vocal tract by conical horns

The transmission-line method is studied systematically as applied to the vocal tract approximated by a sequence of conical horns. The constructed scheme describes the propagation of plane waves in conical horns, with all factors interesting in terms of acoustic theory of speech production, viz., losses, nonrigid vocal tract walls, and potential side-branches, taken into account. The derived equations are tested on a cross-sectional areas of the vocal tract measured by magnetic-resonance tomography on a real speaker.