Push-to-talk wireless telephony

• US 20060211383A1
• Filed: 03/18/2005
• Published: 09/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/18/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Inventors: Harsham, Brent, Lee, Christopher H., Schmidt-Nielsen, Bent, Schwenke, Derek L., Rich, Charles
• Application Number:
  US11/084,383
• Publication Number:
  US 20060211383A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/90.200
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/3877 Arrangements for enabling portable transceivers to be used in a fixed position, e.g. cradles or boosters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/10 Push-to-Talk [PTT] or Push-On-Call services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/45 for Push-to-Talk [PTT] or Push-to-Talk over cellular [PoC] services

Abstract

In a cellular network, a cell phone transmits a continuous voice signal over a voice channel to a server. The cell phone can also generate events, the events including on events and off events. The events can be time-stamped. The events are transmitted as a data signal over a data channel of the network to the server. In the server, only segments of the voice signal that substantially correspond to a particular on event and a following off event are converted by an automated speech recognition engine. The converted signal can be further processed by a dialog manager that generates speech signals for the cell phone in response to the converted signal.

Claims

1. A method for processing a voice signal in a network, comprising:

transmitting, in a client, speech as a continuous voice signal over a voice channel of a network to a server;

generating, in the client, events, the events including on events and off events;

transmitting, in the client, the events as a data signal over a data channel of the network to the server;

converting, in the server, only segments of the voice signal that substantially correspond to a particular on event and a following off event.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

time-stamping, in the client, each event according to a client clock.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

time-stamping, in the server, the voice signal according to a server clock.

4. The method of claim 1, in which the client is a cellular telephone, and the network is cellular.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the events with a soft button.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the events with a hard button.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the events with a touch panel.

8. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

storing, in the client, the voice signal in a voice buffer.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, in the server, a speech signal in response to the converted voice signal; and

transmitting the speech signal to the client over the voice channel.

10. The method of claim 1, in which the voice signal is converted to text.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

processing the text with a dialog manager.

12. The method of claim 1, in which the voice channel and the data channel have different bandwidth and latency characteristics.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

synchronizing the client clock and the server clock.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, in the server, a tone for the client.

15. A push-to-talk telephony system, comprising:

a cell phone configured to transmit a continuous voice signal over a voice channel of a network, the cell phone further comprising;

means for generating events, the events including on events and off events; and

means for transmitting the events as a data signal over a data channel of the network; and

a server configured to convert only segments of the voice signal that substantially correspond to a particular on event and a following off event.

16. The system of claim 15, in which the voice signal is converted to text by an automated speech recognition system.

17. The system of claim 15, further comprising:

means for generating a speech signal in response to the converted voice signal.