Data processing: speech signal processing – linguistics – language – Speech signal processing – Application
Reexamination Certificate
1998-03-10
2001-05-08
Zele, Krista (Department: 2748)
Data processing: speech signal processing, linguistics, language
Speech signal processing
Application
C704S276000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06230132
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This application claims the priority of German patent document 197 09 518.6, filed Mar. 10, 1997, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for real-time speech input of a destination address into a navigation system.
German patent document DE 196 00 700 describes a target guidance system for a motor vehicle in which a fixedly mounted circuit, a contact field circuit or a voice recognition apparatus can be used as an input device. The document, however, does not deal with the vocal input of a target address in a target guidance system.
Published European patent application EP 0 736 853 A1 likewise describes a target guidance system for a motor vehicle. The speech input of a target address in a target guidance system is, however, not the subject of this document.
Published German patent application DE 36 08 497 A1 describes a process for speech controlled operation of a long distance communication apparatus, especially an auto telephone. It is considered a disadvantage of the process that it does not deal with the special problems in speech input of a target address in a target guidance system.
Not yet prepublished German patent application P 195 33 541.4-52 discloses a method and apparatus of this type for automatic control of one or more devices, by speech commands or by speech dialogue in real time. Input speech commands are recognized by a speech recognition device comprising a speaker-independent speech recognition engine and a speaker-independent additional speech recognition engine that identifies recognition probability as the input speech command, and initiates the functions of the device or devices associated with this speech command. The speech command or speech dialogue is formed on the basis of at least one syntax structure, at least one basic command vocabulary, and if necessary at least one speaker-specific additional command vocabulary. The syntax structures and basic command vocabularies are presented in speaker-independent form and are established in real time. The speaker-specific additional vocabulary is input by the respective speaker and/or modified by him/her, with an additional speech recognition engine that operates according to a speaker-dependent recognition method being trained in training phases, during and outside real-time operation by each speaker, to the speaker-specific features of the respective. speaker by at least one-time input of the additional command. The speech dialogue and/or control of the devices is developed in real time as follows:
Speech commands input by the user are fed to a speaker-independent speech recognition engine operating on the basis of phonemes, and to the speaker-dependent additional speech recognition engine where they are subjected to feature extraction and are checked for the presence of additional commands from the additional command vocabulary and classified in the speaker-dependent additional speech recognition engine on the basis of the features extracted therein.
Then the classified commands and syntax structures of the two speech recognition engines, recognized with a certain probability, are assembled into hypothetical speech commands and the latter are checked and classified for their reliability and recognition probability in accordance with the syntax structure provided.
Thereafter, the additional hypothetical speech commands are checked for their plausibility in accordance with specified criteria and, of the hypothetical speech commands recognized as plausible, the one with the highest recognition probability is selected and identified as the speech command input by the user.
Finally, the functions of the device to be controlled that are associated with the identified speech command are initiated and/or answers are generated in accordance with a predetermined speech dialogue structure to continue the speech dialogue. According to this document, the method described can also be used to operate a navigation system, with a destination address being input by entering letters or groups of letters in a spelling mode and with it being possible for the user to supply a list for storage of destination addresses for the navigation system using names and abbreviations that can be determined in advance.
The disadvantage of this method is that the special properties of the navigation system are not discussed, and only the speech input of a destination location by means of a spelling mode is described.
The object of the invention is to provide an improved method and apparatus of the type described above, in which the special properties. of a navigation system are taken into account and simplified.
Another object of the invention is to provide such an arrangement which enables faster speech input of a destination address in a navigation system, improving operator comfort.
These and other objects and advantages are achieved by the method and apparatus according to the invention for speech input of destination addresses in a navigation system, which uses a known speech recognition device, such as described for example in the document referred to above, comprising at least, one speaker-independent speech-recognition engine and at least one speaker-dependent additional speech-recognition engine. The method according to the invention makes possible various input dialogues for speech input of destination addresses. In a first input dialogue (hereinafter referred to as the “destination location input”), the speaker-independent speech recognition device is used to detect destination locations spoken in isolation, and if such destination location is not recognized, to recognize continuously spoken letters and/or groups of letters. In a second input dialogue (hereinafter referred to as “spell destination location”), the speaker-independent speech recognition engine is used to recognize continuously spoken letters and/or groups of letters. In a third input dialogue (hereinafter referred to as “coarse destination input”), the speaker-independent speech-recognition engine is used to recognize destination locations spoken in isolation, and if such destination location is recognized, to recognize continuously spoken letters and/or groups of letters. In a fourth input dialogue (hereinafter referred to as “indirect input”), the speaker-independent speech recognition engine is used to recognize continuously spoken numbers and/or groups of numbers. In a fifth input dialogue (hereinafter referred to as “street input”), the speaker-independent speech-recognition device is. used to recognize street names spoken in isolation and if the street name spoken in isolation is not recognized, to recognize continuously spoken letters and/or groups of letters.
By means of the input dialogues described above, the navigation system is supplied with verified destination addresses, each comprising a destination location and a street. In a sixth input dialogue (hereinafter referred to as “call up address”), in addition to the speaker-independent speech-recognition engine, the speaker-dependent additional speech-recognition engine is used to recognize keywords spoken in isolation. In a seventh input dialogue (hereinafter referred to as “store address”), a keyword spoken in isolation by the user is assigned a destination address entered by the user, so that during the input dialogue “call up address” a destination address associated with the corresponding recognized keyword is transferred to the navigation system.
The method according to the invention is based primarily on the fact that the entire admissible vocabulary for a speech-recognition device is not loaded into the speech-recognition device at the moment it is activated; rather, at least a required lexicon is generated from the entire possible vocabulary during real-time operation and is loaded into the speech-recognition device as a function of the required input dialogue for executing an operating function. There are more than 100,000 locations In the Federal Republic of Germany th
Class Fritz
Kuhn Thomas
Moeller Carsten-Uwe
Nuessle Gerhard
Reh Frank
Daimler-Chrysler AG
Evenson, McKeown, Edwards & Lenahan P.L.L.C.
Opsasnick Michael N.
Zele Krista
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