Open vocabulary speech recognition

• US 20050049870A1
• Filed: 08/24/2004
• Published: 03/03/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Sun, Fang, Zhang, Yaxin, Ren, Xiao-Lin, He, Xin
• Application Number:
  US10/925,601
• Publication Number:
  US 20050049870A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/254
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/10 using distance or distortion measures between unknown speech and reference templates

Abstract

There is described a method 300 for open vocabulary speech recognition performed by an electronic device (100). The method (300) includes receiving an utterance waveform (320) and Processing the waveform (350) to provide feature vectors representing the waveform. Then a step of comparing (360) is effected, the comparing compares the feature vectors with concatenated isolated word acoustic models from a concatenated isolated word acoustic model list to select a suitable concatenated isolated word acoustic model. Then a providing a response step (370) provides a response depending on the suitable concatenated isolated word acoustic model. The response typically is a control signal for activating a function of the device (100).

Claims

1. A method for open vocabulary speech recognition performed by an electronic device, the method comprising:

receiving an utterance waveform;

processing the waveform to provide feature vectors representing the waveform;

comparing the feature vectors with concatenated isolated word acoustic models from a concatenated isolated word acoustic model list to select a suitable concatenated isolated word acoustic model; and

providing a response depending on the suitable concatenated isolated word acoustic model.

2. A method, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the concatenated isolated word acoustic model list is created from the steps of:

obtaining text from a vocabulary store;

converting the text into phonemes; and

concatenating phonemes, corresponding to the phonemes, into concatenated isolated word models forming the concatenated isolated word acoustic model list.

3. A method, as claimed in claim 2, wherein the list is created by storing the concatenated isolated word models in memory.

4. A method, as claimed in claim 2, wherein the list is created by indexing selected ones of the models in phoneme model store.

5. A method, as claimed in claim 2, wherein the acoustic model list is variable in size. Suitably, the acoustic model list created prior to operation of the step of receiving.

6. A method, as claimed in claim 1, wherein, the vocabulary is an open vocabulary.

7. A method, as claimed in claim 2, wherein, the vocabulary is an open vocabulary.

8. A method, as claimed in claim 2, wherein the vocabulary includes text incrementally input.

9. A method, as claimed in claim 8, wherein the text is incrementally input to the vocabulary by a user of the electronic device.

10. A method, as claimed in claim 2, wherein the phoneme model store comprises Hidden Markov Models.

11. A method, as claimed in claim 2, wherein the response includes a control signal for activating a function of the device.