APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DYNAMIC CALL BASED USER ID

• US 20130324095A1
• Filed: 05/31/2012
• Published: 12/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Inventors: Namm, Joseph C., Weidner, Michael N.
• Granted Patent: US 9,137,645 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/10 Push-to-Talk [PTT] or Push-On-Call services

Abstract

A dynamic call based user ID allows subscriber units to be shared amongst a plurality of users or used for a plurality of roles/uses. A voiced call sign is transmitted by a calling subscriber unit to a targeted subscriber unit. A pattern in the voice transmission of the calling unit is detected, and the voiced call sign is compared to a list of pre-stored call signs. When a match between stored calls signs and the current call sign occurs, the calling subscriber unit saves the current call sign. Fixed network equipment (FNE) then associates the saved current call sign with a subscriber unit ID (SUID) of the calling unit. The dynamic association between the call sign and the SUID allows the subscriber unit to be shared amongst different users and for different uses/roles.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a group call in a communication system, the method comprising:

transmitting a voiced call sign to a calling subscriber unit to a targeted subscriber unit, the call sign identifying at least one of;

current user and a current use of the calling subscriber unit;

detecting a pattern in the voice transmission of the calling unit;

in response to a pattern being detected, comparing the voiced call sign to a list of pre-stored call signs;

establishing the calling subscriber unit within the system by saving the current call sign of the calling unit to the calling unit itself;

associating the saved current call sign of the calling unit with a subscriber unit ID (SUID) of the calling unit; and

repeating the steps of transmitting through associating to establish different voiced call signs with the SUID of the calling subscriber unit, thereby enabling the calling subscriber unit to be shared by a plurality of users and for a plurality of uses.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the pattern is either a unit-to-unit pattern or a unit pattern.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of call signs comprises a configurable list stored in either the calling subscriber unit or an infrastructure element of the communication system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of pre-stored call signs comprise phonetic representations of the call signs.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

changing to a different call sign to establish a new call using the same calling unit having the same SUID.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the voiced transmission at the targeted unit;

detecting a pattern in the voice transmission at the targeted unit;

determining, in response to the pattern being detected, when the receiving current unit call sign matches a pre-stored call sign;

acknowledging receipt of the call by the targeted unit in response to a match between the current call sign and the pre-stored call sign;

buffering audio received by targeted unit;

responding to the call by the targeted subscriber unit; and

alerting the targeted unit if the call is missed.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising patching or regrouping the targeted unit to the call when the call was missed.

8. A communication system, comprising:

a plurality of subscriber units comprising at least one calling subscriber unit (SU) and at least one targeted subscriber unit (SU) communicating via talkgroups, a calling SU detecting a patterns from an incoming voice transmission, the pattern indicating a current voiced call sign, the current voiced call sign being compared to a configurable list of call signs; and

a fixed network equipment (FNE) for maintaining the configurable list of call signs by dynamically associating the voiced call sign to a subscriber unit ID (SUID) when a match occurs between the current voiced call sign and the configurable list of call signs.

9. The communication system of claim 8, wherein speech recognition is used to sample the pattern to determine a unit pattern or a unit-to-unit pattern.

10. The communication system of claim 9, wherein upon detection of a pattern, the current voiced call sign is compared to a plurality of stored phonetic representations of call signs to detect a match.

11. The communication system of claim 10, wherein if more than one voiced call sign match occurs, the first voiced call sign is established as the call sign of the calling SU.

12. The communication system of claim 11, wherein if more than one voiced call sign match occurs, the second call sign match is determined to be the targeted SU.

13. The communication system of claim 10, wherein if only one call sign match is detected in the voice sample, that call sign is determined to be the targeted SU.

14. The communication system of claim 8, in response to the targeted SU receiving a voice call, and the voice call is sampled, and voice recognition is used to compare the sample to pre-stored phonetic representations of the voiced call signs to detect a match and establish the received call sign as the call sign of the targeted SU.

15. The communication system of claim 8, wherein the calling SU is alerted when a call is missed by the targeted SU.

16. The communication system of claim 15, wherein the targeted subscriber is patched or regrouped by the FNE to wirelessly connect the targeted SU to the calling SU when the calling SU is not affiliated to the same talkgroup.