Information Terminal, Server Device, Searching System, and Searching Method Thereof

• US 20130080056A1
• Filed: 09/21/2012
• Published: 03/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Clarion Co., Ltd. (Faurecia SA)
• Original Assignee: Clarion Co., Ltd. (Faurecia SA)
• Inventors: Watarai, Norio, Motohashi, Masataka, Fukunaga, Kouichirou, HOMMA, Takeshi, Obuchi, Yasunari
• Granted Patent: US 8,903,651 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/537
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3476 using point of interest [POI] information, e.g. a route passing visible POIs
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3608 using speech input, e.g. using speech recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3679 Retrieval, searching and output of POI information, e.g. hotels, restaurants, shops, filling stations, parking facilities G01C21/3611 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/0018 Speech coding using phonetic or linguistical decoding of the source; Reconstruction using text-to-speech synthesis
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/24 Variable rate codecs, e.g. for generating different qualities using a scalable representation such as hierarchical encoding or layered encoding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0208 Noise filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/60 for measuring the quality of voice signals

Abstract

An object of the present invention is to provide a technique of an information terminal that allows more efficient utilization of high-level searching functions. The information terminal is provided with an audio input accepting unit to accept an input of speech information, a communication unit to establish communication with a predetermined server device via a network, an output unit, a POI specifying unit to transmit the speech information accepted by the audio input accepting unit to the server device and receive information specifying a candidate of a POI (Point Of Interest) associated with the speech information, a POI candidate output unit to output to the output unit, the information specifying the candidate of the POI received by the POI specifying unit, and a route searching unit to accept a selective input of the information specifying the candidate of the POI, and search for a route directed to the POI.

Claims

1. An information terminal comprising,

an audio input accepting unit adapted to accept an input of speech information,

a communication unit adapted to establish communication with a predetermined server device via a network,

an output unit,

a POI specifying unit adapted to transmit the speech information accepted by the audio input accepting unit to the server device, and receive information specifying a candidate of a POI (Point Of Interest) associated with the speech information,

a POI candidate output unit adapted to output to the output unit, the information specifying the candidate of the POI received by the POI specifying unit, and

a route searching unit adapted to accept a selective input of the information specifying the candidate of the POI, and search for a route directed to the POI, wherein,

the POI specifying unit compresses the speech information accepted by the audio input accepting unit with a predetermined compression rate and transmits the speech information being compressed to the server device, and

when a quality of the speech information being accepted by the audio input accepting unit is equal to or lower than a predetermined level, the POI specifying unit sets the predetermined compression rate to be a value which mitigates deterioration of the quality.

2. The information terminal according to claim 1, wherein,

upon receiving from the server device, multiple character string candidates obtained as a result of recognition of the speech information, the POI specifying unit further outputs to the output unit the multiple character string candidates in selectable manner, and accepts an input for selecting one of the character string candidates.

3. The information terminal according to claim 1, wherein,

when the quality of the speech information accepted by the audio input accepting unit is equal to or lower than a preset level, the POI specifying unit does not transmit the speech information to the server device.

4. The information terminal according to claim 1, wherein,

the POI specifying unit transmits the speech information accepted by the audio input accepting unit, sequentially to the server device.

5. The information terminal according to claim 1, wherein,

in a process for outputting to the output unit, the information specifying the candidate of the POI received by the POI specifying unit, if multiple character strings are obtained as a result of recognition of the speech information, the POI candidate output unit outputs the character strings to the output unit, in such a manner that the candidate of the POI is associated with each of the character strings.

6. An information terminal comprising an audio input accepting unit adapted to accept an input of one or more speech information items, wherein,

upon accepting the input of multiple speech information items, the audio input accepting unit specifies and employs the speech information with a higher audio quality.

7. An information terminal comprising a control unit and one or more audio input accepting units, wherein,

the audio input accepting unit accepts inputting of one or more speech information items, and

when more than one audio input accepting unit is provided, the control unit employs the audio input accepting unit which is positioned closer to a user.

8. An information terminal comprising a control unit and one or more audio input accepting units, wherein,

the audio input accepting unit accepts inputting of one or more speech information items, and

when more than one audio input accepting unit is provided and a user designates one of the audio input accepting units in advance, the control unit employs the audio input accepting unit being designated.

9. A server device comprising,

a speech information receiving unit adapted to receive speech information from a predetermined information terminal via a network,

a noise removing unit adapted to remove noise information from the speech information,

a speech information transmitting unit adapted to transmit the speech information from which the noise has been removed to a predetermined speech recognizer via the network,

a character string receiving unit adapted to receive via the network, a character string as a result of recognition of the speech information by the speech recognizer,

a character string transmitting unit adapted to transmit the character string via the network, to a predetermined POI provider for providing POI (Point of Interest) information associated with the character string,

a POI information receiving unit adapted to receive via the network, the POI information associated with the character string, and

a POI information transmitting unit adapted to transmit the POI information to the information terminal.

10. The server device according to claim 9, wherein,

the server device further comprising,

when multiple character string candidates are included as the character string received by the character string receiving unit, a character string candidate transmitting unit adapted to transmit the character string candidates to the information terminal, and

a selected character string receiving unit adapted to receive from the information terminal, one character string candidate, selected from the character string candidates, wherein,

when the selected character string receiving unit receives the one character string candidate, the character string candidate transmitting unit transmits the one character string candidate to the POI provider via the network.

11. The server device according to claim 9, wherein,

when multiple character string candidates are included as the character string received by the character string receiving unit, the character string transmitting unit transmits the multiple character string candidates to the POI provider via the network, and

the POI information receiving unit receives multiple POI information items being associated with the multiple character string candidates, respectively.

12. The server device according to claim 9, further comprising a POI redundancy eliminating unit adapted to eliminate redundancy of POI, when more than one POI is included in the POI information received by the POI information receiving unit.

13. The server device according to claim 9, wherein,

the noise removing unit uses multiple noise removing algorithms to create multiple speech information items from which the noise has been removed.

14. The server device according to claim 9, wherein,

when the speech information receiving unit starts receiving the speech information from the predetermined information terminal via the network, the noise removing unit removes the noise information sequentially from the speech information being received, and

the speech information transmitting unit transmits the speech information from which the noise removing unit has removed the noise, sequentially to the predetermined speech recognizer via the network.

15. A searching system having an information terminal, and a server device communicating with the information terminal via a network, the information terminal comprising,

an audio input accepting unit adapted to accept an input of speech information,

a communication unit adapted to establish communication with the server device via the network,

an output unit,

a POI specifying unit adapted to transmit the speech information accepted by the audio input accepting unit to the server device, and receiving information specifying a candidate of a POI (Point Of Interest) associated with the speech information,

a POI candidate output unit adapted to output to the output unit, the information specifying the candidate of the POI received by the POI specifying unit, and

a route searching unit adapted to accept a selective input of the information specifying the candidate of the POI, and search for a route directed to the POI, and

the server device comprising,

a speech information receiving unit adapted to receive the speech information from the information terminal via the network,

a noise removing unit adapted to remove noise information from the speech information,

a speech information transmitting unit adapted to transmit via the network, the speech information from which the noise has been removed to a predetermined speech recognizer,

a POI information receiving unit adapted to receive via the network, POI information associated with the speech information transmitted to the speech recognizer, and

a POI information transmitting unit adapted to transmit the POI information to the information terminal.

16. A searching method of a searching system having an information terminal, and a server device communicating with the information terminal via a network, the searching system comprising an audio input accepting unit adapted to accept an input of speech information and an output unit, and the searching method executing,

a transmitting step of transmitting the speech information accepted by the audio input accepting unit to the server device,

a speech information receiving step of receiving via the network, the speech information from the information terminal,

a noise removing step of removing noise information from the speech information,

a speech information transmitting step of transmitting via the network, the speech information from which the noise has been removed to a predetermined speech recognizer,

a POI information receiving step of receiving via the network from a predetermined POI provider, POI (Point Of Interest) information associated with the speech information transmitted to the speech recognizer,

a POI information transmitting step of transmitting the POI information to the information terminal,

a POI specifying step of receiving the POI information, and

a POI candidate outputting step of outputting to the output unit, the POI information received by the POI specifying step.