DEVICE FOR AIDING COMMUNICATION IN THE AERONAUTICAL DOMAIN

• US 20130346081A1
• Filed: 06/11/2013
• Published: 12/26/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/11/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Airbus SAS (Airbus SE)
• Original Assignee: Airbus
• Inventors: LOUBIERE, Vincent, GOWDA, Netra
• Granted Patent: US 9,666,178 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0013 with a ground station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0021 located in the aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

The device (1) comprises means (11) for recording audio messages corresponding to all the incoming and outgoing audio communications, means (13) for transcribing, in real time, each of said audio messages into a textual message, means (15) for displaying, on at least one screen (17), each textual message thus generated, and means able to play back any recorded audio message.

Claims

1. A device for aiding communication in the aeronautical domain, said device comprising:

at least one microphone;

at least one loudspeaker; and

means for processing and transmitting data relating to an audio communication, which are connected to said microphone and to said loudspeaker and which are able to emit outgoing communications and to receive incoming communications,

which comprises moreover;

recording means for recording audio messages corresponding to all the incoming and outgoing audio communications, transmitted by said means for processing and transmitting data;

transcription means for transcribing, in real time, each of said audio messages into a textual message; and

display means for displaying, on at least one screen, each textual message generated by said transcription means, while indicating moreover the source at the origin of this message.

2. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which comprises moreover:

playback means which are able to carry out audio playback of any recorded audio message; and

activation means able to be activated by an operator to identify and trigger the playback by the playback means of a recorded audio message.

3. The device as claimed in claim 2,

wherein said activation means comprise, for each textual message displayed on the screen, an associated sensitive area which is displayed jointly with the textual message with which it is associated, and which is able to be activated so as to trigger the playback of the audio message corresponding to said textual message.

4. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which comprises means allowing an operator to copy at least part of a displayed textual message and to transmit it to a system of the aircraft.

5. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which comprises moreover means for determining the time of emission of each audio message, and in that said display means display moreover on said screen, jointly with the textual message with which it is associated, the corresponding emission time.

6. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which comprises means making it possible to access an automatic terminal information service, to transcribe into textual messages all the audio messages emitted by this service, to display said textual messages on said screen, and to play back any reordered audio message that may be listened to on request.

7. The device as claimed in claim 1,

wherein said screen of the display means represents a dedicated single graphical interface.

8. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which comprises means configured to extract particular data from an audio or textual message and means configured to use the data thus extracted.

9. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which comprises means configured to inter-compare at least two messages arising from one and the same source, respectively at different moments, and to highlight differences, if any, between these two messages.

10. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which comprises moreover a voice recognition unit, which is configured to receive a request for information of voice type and to search a textual message for the requested information, the latter thereafter being highlighted on the screen.

11. The device as claimed in claim 10,

wherein said voice recognition unit comprises a voice training unit.

12. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which is mounted as a permanent fixture on an aircraft.

13. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which is integrated, at least in part, into a means of open world type which is able to be connected to at least one system of an aircraft.

14. The device as claimed in claim 1,

which is installed on the ground in an air traffic control post.

15. A system for aiding communication in respect of audio communications in the aeronautical domain, comprising a plurality of communication units which are envisaged at different posts and are able to exchange messages between themselves, by means of radio waves,

wherein at least one of said communication units is such as the device specified under claim 1.

16. An aircraft,

which comprises a device such as that specified under claim 1.