Microphone initialization enhancement for speech recognition

• US 20060004573A1
• Filed: 06/30/2005
• Published: 01/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Groeger, Steven, Hayton, Stuart John, De Leeuw, Adam Pieter
• Granted Patent: US 7,636,661 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/251
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/20 Speech recognition techniques specially adapted for robustness in adverse environments, e.g. in noise, of stress induced speech G10L21/02 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/87 Detection of discrete points within a voice signal

Abstract

A method and arrangement for improved speech recognition in a telephonically challenging speakerphone in-car environment. The method includes receiving a signal from a microphone representative of speech to be recognised, performing detection of a transition in the signal indicative of switch on of the microphone, and, in response to the detection, performing speech recognition on the signal with reduced contribution from an initial portion thereof. The initial portion may be treated as optional speech, the speech recognition may be performed with a predetermined redundant sound, and a user may be requested to speak the predetermined redundant sound when speech recognition has fallen below a predetermined threshold. Thus, recognition may be made possible when otherwise it would not be possible, recognition match scoring will be increased as the low weighting given by deleted initial sounds will be eliminated and therefore confusion of the recognised phrase will be reduced.

Claims

1. A method of speech recognition for use with a system having a microphone, comprising:

receiving a signal from the microphone representative of speech to be recognized when the system is in a state where the microphone has been turned off;

performing detection of a transition in the signal indicative of switch on of the microphone; and

in response to the detection performing speech recognition on the signal with reduced contribution from an initial portion thereof.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of performing speech recognition comprises treating the initial portion as optional speech that is acceptable to have absent from a received utterance within the signal.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the initial portion comprises at least one of first word and a received and terminal portion of the first word of a spoken series of words contained within said signal.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of:

establishing an utterance initiating word for the system, wherein said first word is said utterance initiating word.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of performing speech recognition comprises performing speech recognition with a predetermined redundant sound.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said predetermined redundant sound is user configurable.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising detecting when speech recognition has fallen below a predetermined threshold, and in response thereto requesting a user to speak the predetermined redundant sound.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the system is a telephone speaker phone system.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the system is an in-car system.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

establishing a configurable parameter for initial word recognition sensitivity, wherein a quantity by which a contribution of the initial portion is reduced is dependent upon a value of said configurable parameter.

11. A speech recognition arrangement for use with a system having a microphone, comprising:

means for receiving a signal from the microphone representative of speech to be recognized;

means for performing detection of a transition in the signal indicative of switch on of the microphone; and

means for performing, in response to the detection, speech recognition on the signal with reduced contribution from an initial portion thereof.

12. The arrangement of claim 11, wherein the means for performing speech recognition comprises means for treating the initial portion as optional speech.

13. The arrangement of claim 11, wherein the means for performing speech recognition comprises performing speech recognition with a predetermined redundant sound.

14. The arrangement of claim 13 further comprising means for detecting when speech recognition has fallen below a predetermined threshold, and in response thereto requesting a user to speak the predetermined redundant sound.

15. The arrangement of claim 11, wherein the system is a telephone speakerphone system.

16. The arrangement of claim 15, wherein the system is an in-car system.

17. A speech recognition method comprising:

a speech recognition system receiving a speech input when the speech recognition system is in a state where a microphone input is turned off;

identifying an initial portion of the speech input;

speech recognizing said speech input in a manner that the identified initial portion has a reduced contribution compared to other portions of the speech input.

18. The speech recognition method of claim 17, further comprising:

before said speech recognizing step, discarding said initial portion of the speech input, wherein the initial portion has a reduced contribution because it is not speech recognized.

19. The speech recognition method of claim 17, further comprising:

identifying the initial portion as a portion of the speech input proceeding a first detected pause in the speech input.

20. The speech recognition method of claim 17, wherein the initial portion comprises at least one of a first spoken word within the speech input and a received and terminal portion of the first spoken word within the speech input.