A Signal-Size Estimator Based on

Correlation-Dimension For Auditory Signals

Marco William Langi
Physics Study Program, FMIPA
Bandung Institute of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7158-5128
Kusprasapta Mutijarsa
Information Technology RG, SEEI
Bandung Institute of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9007-609X
Yoanes Bandung
Information Technology RG, SEEI
Bandung Institute of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9744-354X

Armein Z. R. Langi
Information Technology RG, SEEI
Bandung Institute of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9516-1461

Abstract—This paper presents an estimator of fractal signal
sizes based on correlation fractal dimension as applied to auditory
signals. Correlation fractal dimension has been proposed for
characterization of signals coming from chaotic sources. Practical
estimations are made possible using a Takens algorithm, producing
different estimates in each embedding dimension. The estima-
tor consists of four processes: (i) signal measures creation, (ii)
covering-counting, (iii) critical-exponent estimation, and (iv) size
calculation. We study the resulting estimates of controlled signals
to validate the estimator as well as to come up with a calibration
scheme. The paper further discusses a possible application of
fractal sizes to characterize coughs to identify the presense of
respiratory diseases, such as in Covid-19 pre-screening.
Keywords—Correlation dimension, Takens embedding dimen-
sion, signal sizes, auditory signals.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Signal processing systems have been applied to many im-
portant problems, including non-intrusive pre-screening of res-
piratory diseases such as, among others, Covid-19. Such a
system records auditory signals coming from a person’s voices,
especially coughs. It then characterizes the signals using various
algorithms, and applies decision making schemes, including
machine learning, to determine pre-screening outcomes [1].
It is then mandatory to measure various sizes of auditory
signals (i.e., audible sound signals) as their distinct character-
izations [2]. While auditory signals are usual viewed as one
dimensional, i.e., x(t) where domain t is of single dimensional,
we have long argued for example in [3] that signals may
come from sources having multi-dimensional dynamical system
models [4], [5]. Appropriate measurements must take place in a
correct dimension, otherwise the results are invalid. Dimension
estimates of signal source must then be embbeded in any signal
measurements [6].
This paper describes a fractal signal-size estimator for audi-
tory signals, for further use in respiratory disease pre-screening
applications. We organize the paper as follows. After this intro-
duction, Section 2 introduces our fractal signal-size estimator,
This research is supported by P2MI Research Grant 2021, STEI, ITB.
978-1-6654-1697-9/21/$31.00 © 2021 IEEE
as the paper main contribution. The Section explains how to
use existing fractal-dimension algorithms, such as in TISEAN
tool box [7], in the estimator. A method by Takens has been
used to estimate source correlation dimension from a single
dimensional time-series obeservation [8]. It relies on artificially
created m-dimensional spaces embedded in the time series,
and estimates fractal dimensions in those artificial spaces.
Grassberger has published fast algorithms [9] [10], culminating
in a set of toolbox in TISEAN.
Although the Takens and Grassberger approach is a break-
though, the approach must be used with a great care to be
reliable. It is sensitive to noise, as well as to the selection
of parameters to construct embedding spaces. As its other
contribution, this paper studies these issues in the context of
auditory signals. Section 3 describes the use of the estimator on
three well-known signals: (i) sinusoidal, (ii) pink noise, and (iii)
Henon chaotic signals, and studies the results to recommend
calibrations. Finally Section 4 discusses the use of the calibrated
estimator as well as concluding remarks.
II. E STIMATING S IGNAL S IZES BASED ON C ORRELATION
D IMENSION
As shown in Fig. 1, our fractal estimator of signal sizes con-
sists of (i) creating of signal measures, (ii) covering-counting
of signal measures, (iii) citical-exponent estimation D, and
(iii) size calculation. The system takes a segment of signal
as its input, and produces two outputs: signal size and signal
dimension. The estimator works as follows.
Estimation of
Critical Dimension
Exponents
Creation of Covering
Signal Signal and
Measures Counting
Size
Calculation Size
Fig. 1. A fractal signal size estimator.
A. Input Signals
A segment of an auditory signal is given as the input signal
x[n]. Auditorial signals have a spectrum of frequency ranging
from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Digitizing it requires a frequency
sampling of more than 40000 samples/s. Standard sampling
rates of 44100 or 48000 samples/s can be used. Furthermore,
we limit a segmen to a maximum of 10 s, as a single cough
takes a duration of one second or less.
B. Creation of Signal Measures
We create a measure from this signal, which is non negative
numbers associated with sets of points from the signal. There
are many ways of doing this, and we are interested in one
that is scale-invariant with its set size. In a case of correlation
dimension, we first create set of vectors of m dimensional from
input signal x[n].
We then create a “ball” of scale (or diameter) r to be applied
on the signal set, and define the measure as square of the
probability to find a point inside the ball. The point itself is
defined as a pair of two vectors. Such a measure is called
correlation sum C(r) [10].
We can see, C(r) is the number of point pairs that have
distances less that r. Increasing r causes more pairs being
counted. Thus, C(r) also increases, as a power law can be
defined as
C (r) ∝ rDc (1)
If this holds the critical exponent Dc is the correlation dimen-
sion we are looking for.
C. Covering and Counting
Having defined vectors xi , we should use ball covering and
counting on the vector pairs to count C(rk ) for several succes-
sive rk . It is however computationally expensive. The TISEAN
tool box proposes a much faster algorithm that compute instead
N
1 X X
C (m, r) = θ (r− k xj − xk k) (2)
Npairs j=m k<j−w
with w is the so called Theiler window, and Npairs does not
have to be all possible pairs. When r is small and m > 2D
this measure scales with r, i.e.,
C (m, r) ∝ rD(m) (3)
with D(m) ≈ DC as in Eq. (1). For each m, we then succes-
sively cover the signal with ball rk and count its corresponding
C(m, rk ).
D. Estimating Critical Exponents
We can have a line equation of a log-log plot that can be
obtained experimentally by first convert Eq. (1) into a line
equation
log C (m, rk ) = log S + D(m) log rk−1 (4)
yk = c − D(m)xk (5)
Here we perform successive counting measures to obtain
pairs (xk , yk ) for several available k. We can then plot the most
probable straight line, the log-log plot, using linear regression.
The slope is −D(m), and S = c as k → ∞.
Using a linear regression on Eq. (5) we can estimate the
critical exponent D(m), which is the correlation dimension
at a certain m. If the actual dimension is greater than the
selected embedding dimension, the measurement gives the
embedding dimension. In that case, one must increase the
selected embedding dimension, and repeat the measurement.
Thus a best practice is to obtain measurement on several m,
and see if the results converge. The measurement will fail (i.e.,
does not converge to a number other that the m) if the system
is random, or the dimension is too high.
E. Size Calculation
Finally, at a valid D(m), Eq. (5) gives c, which in turn gives
the signal size S as c = log S. Alternatively
−D(m)
S ≈ Sk = C (rk ) rk (6)
for a small and statistically valid rk .
III. M EASUREMENT R ESULTS
A. Inputs
As input, we use three reference signals: sinusoidal, noise and
Henon, shown in Figs 2, 3, and 4, respectively. A sinusoidal
should give a dimension of D(m) = 1. A noise signal should
give a very high or infinite dimension. In this measurement
case, a noise signal should give D(m) = m, meaning the
measure does not converge. Finally, the Henon signal should
give D(m) = 1.25 ± 0.02.
In our validating process, we use one-second segment of
48000 samples/s. Data are reduced using Theiler window of
50, delay J = 1, Npairs = 1000, and smoothing of the results
using a Gaussian kernel (see [7]).
1
A 440 Hz Sinusoidal at 48000 samples/s
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
time (in seconds)
Fig. 2. A signal segment of cos (2π440t) sampled at 48000 samples/s.
B. Dimension Estimations
Figure 5 shows dimension estimation results of sinusoidal
signal. Each line represents an estimate for each embedding
dimension m = 1, · · · , 10, from the bottom to the top. The
x-axis represents the scale r in a logarithmic scale. Visual
 Pink Noise at 48000 samples/s File = pink.dat, Delay = 1, Theiler Windows = 50, Gaussian kernel
0.15
3
Estimates

0.1
2.5

0.05
2

Correlation Dimension
0
1.5

-0.05 1

-0.1 0.5

-0.15 0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.001 0.01 0.1
time (in seconds) Disk Radius

Fig. 3. A signal segment of pink noise. Fig. 6. Dimension estimation of pink noise.

henon.r5000.dat, N=, Delay=1, Theiler Windows=50, Gaussian kernel

Henon Signal at 4800 Points 3
1000
Estimates

800
2.5
600

400 2

Correlation Dimension
200
1.5
0

-200
1

-400

-600 0.5

-800
0
-1000 0.01 0.1 1
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
Disk Radius
time (in seconds)

Fig. 4. A signal segment coming from a Henon source. Fig. 7. Dimension estimation of signal coming from Henon system.

C. Signal Sizes
inspections of this result show that the estimator has given We are now ready to calculate the sizes of signals. Here we
correct estimates for m > 1 and scales 0.01 < r < 0.1. use Eq. (6). However, we have used TIASEN fast algorithm
The results for noise signal are shown in Fig. 6. As expected as in Eq. (2). As a result there are C(m, r) as many as m =
each line reports D(m) = m. This means they do not converge. 1, · · · , 10. This results in 10 estimates of sizes, as shown in Fig.
Visual inspections of thess results also suggest that valid scales 8. The Figure shows lines from top to bottom for m = 1, 2, · · · ,
are 0.01 < r < 0.1. respectively. We shall use line from m closest to D, m ≥ D,
Finally, processing Henon signal produces results in Fig. 7. in this Henon case m = 2.
Since we know D(m) = 1.25, the results confirm this for .
m > 1. Visual inspections also suggest that valid scale range
Henon Signal Sizes
is 0.01 < r < 0.1.
Estimates
1.2

File = sinusFS8000F61.dat, NDelay = 1, Theiler Windows = 50, Gaussian kernel

0.8
3
Signal Size

Estimates

0.6
2.5

0.4
2
Correlation Dimension

0.2
1.5

0
0.01 0.1 1
1
Disc Diameters

0.5

Fig. 8. Sizes estimation of signal coming from Henon system.

0
0.01 0.1 1

Disk Radius Furthermore we should only consider sizes within a valid

diameter range of 0.01 < r < 0.1. As shown in Table I, local
Fig. 5. Estimation of sinusuidal signal. estimations results in 10 possible dimension values. Averaging
size value at m = 2 within this range results in Henon signal [5] W. Kinsner, “Fractal Dimensions : Morphological, Entropy, Spectrum and
size of S = 0.603 for D = 1.25. Using local dimension D = Variance Classes,” tech. rep., Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University
of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, May 1994.
1.23, we obtain S = 0.57. [6] A. Langi, “Applications of fractal measure theory to signal processing,”
in International Conference on Instrumentation, Communication and
TABLE I Information Technology (ICICI) 2005 Proc., August 3rd -5th , 2005,
P ROCESSING RESULTS OF H ENON SIGNAL . Bandung, Indonesia, 8 2005.
[7] R. Hegger, H. Kantz, and T. Schreiber, “Tisean 3.0.1 nonlinear time series
Signal Sizes analysis,” 2007. https://www.pks.mpg.de/tisean/ Last accessed on 2021-
m 06-17.
Dim Size
[8] E. J. Kostelich, “The analysis of chaotic time-series data,” Systems and
1 0.949624 0.791575 Control Letters, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 313–319, 1997. Control of Chaos and
2 1.235413 0.573426 Synchronization.
3 1.219706 0.322373 [9] P. Grassberger and I. Procaccia, “Characterization of strange attractors,”
4 1.193579 0.192726 Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 50, pp. 346–349, Jan 1983.
5 1.228974 0.147341 [10] P. Grassberger, “An optimized box-assisted algorithm for fractal dimen-
6 1.242107 0.103058 sions,” Physics Letters A, vol. 148, no. 1, pp. 63–68, 1990.
7 1.229582 0.066005
8 1.238595 0.047092
9 1.245949 0.031998
10 1.257114 0.023741
Estimate 0.573426

IV. D ISCUSSIONS AND C ONCLUDING R EMARKS

We have developed correlation-dimension based size estima-
tor for auditory signals, and verified it using three reference
signals. The estimator takes a segment of time-domain signal,
tipically of length 1 second and apply the dimension estimation
and size calculation. The estimator provides a set of possible
dimensions at a range of measurement diameters. Visual in-
spections suggest that valid diameters for signals sampled at
48000 sample/s are in the interval 0.01 < r < 0.1.
We have confirmed the validity of measurements on three
reference signals: sinusiodal, noise, and chaotic. The estimator
produces expected results.
We suggest the following steps to use this estimator for
respiratory disease detection research.
1) Collect coughs samples of healthy group and patient
group (people with negative and positive Covid-19 dis-
ease, respectively).
2) Segment the samples into 1-s cough segments.
3) Estimate dimensions and sizes of each segment
4) Determine correlations between the dimensions and sizes
and disease parameters.
As a conclusion, an auditory signal-size estimator can be
developed using correlation fractal dimension measurement.
Possible applications include detection of respiratory diseases,
such as Covid-19.

R EFERENCES
[1] J. Laguarta, F. Hueto, and B. Subirana, “Covid-19 artificial intelligence
diagnosis using only cough recordings,” IEEE Open Journal of Engineer-
ing in Medicine and Biology, vol. 1, pp. 275–281, 2020.
[2] X. Yang, K. Wang, and S. Shamma, “Auditory representations of acoustic
signals,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 38, no. 2,
pp. 824–839, 1992.
[3] A. Langi and W. Kinsner, “Consonant characterization using correlation
fractal dimension for speech recognition,” in Proceedings of Communi-
cations, Power, and Computing. Conference Proceedings. IEEE (1995),
1995.
[4] A. Veryga, R. Politanskyi, V. Lesinskyi, and T. Ruda, “Analysis of using
of fractal signals for noise immune information transmission systems,”
in 2020 IEEE 15th International Conference on Advanced Trends in Ra-
dioelectronics, Telecommunications and Computer Engineering (TCSET),
pp. 162–165, 2020.