Comparison of TSVCIS voice at 8000 and 12000 bps VERSUS CVSD at 16000 bps

Abstract

In this paper a novel technique for implementing heavily bit error protected 8 and 12 kilobits per second (kbps) voice coder (vocoder) based on a 2.4 kbps vocoder specified in Tactical Secure Voice Cryptographic Interoperability Specification (TSVCIS) is compared to the current 16 kbps Continuously Variable Slope Delta Modulation (CVSD) used in several legacy military radios and the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS). TSVCIS voice significantly outscored CVSD in terms of quality, using the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) and Diagnostic Acceptability Measure (DAM), and intelligibility, from the Diagnostic Rhyme Test (DRT). These tests show that TSVCIS voice delivers significantly higher quality and intelligibility than CVSD when transmitted over noisy communication channels.